New AIDS diagnoses decline in San Francisco

The number of new AIDS diagnoses in the San Francisco Bay area in 2004 dropped to levels not seen since the early 1980s, primarily due to HIV prevention campaigns and the success of antiretroviral drug cocktails in slowing HIV disease progression, The [San Jose] Mercury News reports. An estimated 245 AIDS cases were diagnosed in the area in 2004, about 30 fewer than in 1983, when the AIDS epidemic was taking hold. The region recorded a record-high 2,327 new AIDS diagnoses in 1992. The trend also has been reported in California's Alameda, Santa Clara, and San Mateo counties, where new AIDS cases are down dramatically. John Greenspan, director of the AIDS Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco, calls the data "enormously satisfying." "Our goal is to put ourselves out of business," he told The Mercury News.