The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a new report on the growing number of HIV/AIDS diagnoses in the population of men having sex with men, or MSM, a term public health officials prefer since not every man who has sex with another man is homosexual or bisexual.  The alarming rise in diagnoses occurred between the years 2001 and 2006, when HIV transmission in other categories, such as IV drug users and those that engage in high-risk heterosexual activities, declined.

Public health officials are particularly concerned about the rapid rise in HIV/AIDS diagnoses in the group of young men between the ages of 13 and 24.  The incidence of transmission was highest in young men of ethnic minority.

There were 214,379 new diagnoses made between 2001 and 2006, with 46% of those new cases involving MSM transmission.  These numbers represent a 12.4% annual increase in HIV/AIDS cases among men between 13 and 24 years of age.

The sharpest increases by race or ethnicity occurred in young men of Asian/Pacific Island descent and 3.6% in the American Indian/Alaska Native MSM.  These numbers, however, represent less than 1% of all new cases reported during the study period.

The rate of increase each year in African American MSM under the age of 25 was 14.9%, or 7,658 new cases during the study period.  Young Caucasian MSM saw an annual rate of increase in diagnosis at 9.4%, or 3,221 new diagnoses, and the rate of increase in young Hispanic men was 7.9%, or 2,422 new cases.

It has been demonstrated in earlier studies that, when HIV-positive status is revealed, risky behaviors are reduced, which leads public health officials to call for improved prevention strategies, especially in the populations most at risk.  To better serve these populations, the CDC has added more testing sites in the 23 geographic regions where the number of HIV cases is highest.