Nyc Reports Sharp Drop In Aids Deaths New Treatments, More Funding Likely Causes Of The Decline
In what is likely to be a harbinger of a welcome national trend, New York City recorded an unprecedented and unexpectedly sharp decline in AIDS deaths last year, public health officials said Friday.
Mary Ann Chiasson, an official with the New York City department of health, said that after steady increases in mortality that began in 1983, deaths reached 7,000 a year in 1995 and then suddenly plunged to 5,000 in 1996.
Officials said they have no solid explanation, although they speculated that the decrease stemmed from a combination of new treatments and an increase in federal funding for services for AIDS patients.
Dr. John Ward, chief of AIDS surveillance for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, predicted similar declines nationwide when figures become available in February because AIDS-related deaths stabilized in 1995 “for the first time since the epidemic began.”
The information was given to participants at the Fourth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, a major AIDS meeting taking place here this week.
In other studies presented at the conference, the CDC reported that the incidence of AIDS among young people 13 to 25 rose nearly 20 percent between 1990 and 1995.
Nevertheless, the CDC described the AIDS increase among youths as “modest,” compared to the 200 percent recorded in the same age group between 1985 and 1990.
In the New York City study, researchers said the reasons for the drop in deaths are unclear, since protease inhibitors, the most powerful of the new AIDS drugs, were not even commercially available when the decline began.
But experts speculated that greater numbers of AIDS patients have begun aggressive combination therapy using other drugs and that treatments have become more available because of the Ryan White Act approved in 1990 to provide federal assistance.
Nationally, the number of AIDS deaths increased from 42,114 in 1994 to 42,506 in 1995, which is regarded as a leveling off when adjusted for increases in population, Ward said.
The incidence in 1995 was 15.4 deaths per 100,000 people - the same as it was in 1994, he said.
The CDC report on AIDS incidence showed the disease rising among young people, jumping more than 130 percent among heterosexuals between 1990 and 1995, while remaining constant among gays and bisexual men and drug users, said Dr. Paul Denning of the CDC. It rose by more than 70 percent among women and remained steady among men.
In 1995, more than 70 percent of all AIDS cases among adolescents and young adults were diagnosed among blacks and Latinos, he said.
Finally, between 1990 and 1995, AIDS incidence among young black heterosexual women rose almost 160 percent, the largest increase among all groups of young persons.
At the same time, the incidence among young white and bisexual men dropped more than 30 percent, accounting for the greatest decrease.
xxxx BIG HIKE AMONG YOUNG The CDC report showed AIDS rising among young people, jumping more than 130 percent among heterosexuals between 1990 and 1995.