Black America Would Rank High on AIDS List

If black America were a country, it would rank 16th in the world in the number of people living with the AIDS virus, the Black AIDS Institute, an advocacy group, reported yesterday.

The report, financed in part by the Ford Foundation and the Elton John AIDS Foundation, provides a startling new perspective on an epidemic that was first recognized in 1981.

Nearly 600,000 blacks are living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and up to 30,000 are becoming infected each year. When adjusted for age, their death rate is 2 1/2 times that of infected whites, the report said. Partly as a result, the hypothetical nation of black America would rank below 104 other countries in life expectancy.

Those and other disparities are "staggering," said Dr. Kevin A. Fenton, who directs HIV prevention efforts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal agency responsible for tracking the epidemic in the United States.

"It is a crisis that needs a new look at prevention," Fenton said.

In a separate report yesterday, the United Nations painted a somewhat more optimistic picture of the worldwide AIDS epidemic, noting that fewer people are dying of the disease since its peak in the late 1990s and that more people are receiving antiretroviral drugs.

Nevertheless, the report found that progress remained uneven and that the future of the epidemic was uncertain. The report was issued in advance of the 17th International AIDS Conference, which begins this weekend in Mexico City.

The gains are partly from the Bush administration's program to deliver drugs and preventive measures to people in countries highly affected by HIV.

The Black AIDS Institute took note of that program in criticizing the administration's efforts at home.