
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 30, 1993                   TAG: 9304300029
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ATLANTA                                LENGTH: Short

AIDS CASES RISE AT SURPRISING RATE

The number of Americans with AIDS increased at a surprising rate during the first three months of the year, when more than 35,000 new cases were reported, federal health officials said Thursday.

Most of the new cases stemmed from a new definition of the deadly disease, but even cases not attributed to the broader definition increased by 21 percent, double the rate for the period last year.

"That is higher than we expected," said Dr. John Ward, chief of AIDS surveillance for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Some of that 21 percent is a sign that the AIDS epidemic is continuing to grow."

It also means that people with HIV who have fought off AIDS with medication for several years are starting to get sick, said Lynora Williams, spokeswoman for the AIDS Action Council, a patient advocacy group based in Washington.

Since 1987, HIV patients were defined as having AIDS once they contracted certain blood infections, the skin cancer Kaposi's sarcoma or any of 21 other indicator diseases.

On Jan. 1, three more diseases - pulmonary tuberculosis, recurring pneumonia and invasive cervical cancer - were added. So was a dip in the level of the body's master immune cells, called CD4s, to 200 per cubic millimeter, or one-fifth the level of a healthy person.

From Jan. 1 to March 31, 35,779 new AIDS cases were diagnosed nationwide, a 204 percent increase from the 11,770 new cases during the same period in 1992 under the old definition, the CDC reported. Last year, under the narrower definition, cases increased about 10 percent every three months.

by CNB