AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) is calling for the immediate release of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) latest HIV incidence numbers, after Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) referred to them while in attendance at the United Nations' 2008 High Level Meeting on AIDS in New York this week. The US largest AIDS organization and operator of free AIDS treatment clinics in the U.S., Africa, Latin America/Caribbean and Asia, also called for massive scale-up of HIV testing throughout the nation.
Reuters India reported today in Better Counting Raises HIV Rate in the U.S. by 25 Percent (Daniel Bases, 6/11/08): "Researchers have been undercounting new cases of HIV infection in the United States, meaning the rate is probably 25 percent higher at 50,000 people per year, the nation's top AIDS doctor said on Tuesday."
Despite this alarming rise and the urging AIDS advocacy groups to release the data, the CDC has yet to reveal the 2005 HIV incidence rate. In a community letter dated November 26, 2007 and sent to the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD) and others, the CDC revealed its plan to release the 2005 HIV incidence estimates "in the coming months" and stated that the information was being submitted to "an academic journal for peer review to ensure that the methods, emerging data, and conclusions are carefully reviewed for scientific accuracy and rigor before they are published."