The result: the proportion of gay and bisexual men who did not know they were HIV-positive has dropped from about 20 percent in 2004 to only 8 percent in 2011, Das said.
"HIV in the U.S. is not a homogenous epidemic. It's lots of tiny little epidemics affecting different groups of people and different geographies in different ways," Das said.
In the United States, HIV has the biggest impact on gay and bisexual men. Black men in this group make up a quarter of new HIV cases. Among women infected HIV, black and Hispanic women made up more than three-fourths of new cases in 2005.
A new study is under way in the Bronx, in New York City, and in Washington to promote testing in these areas, with special messages for gay and bisexual men, and to determine whether incentives like receiving gift cards make people more likely to visit their clinic and take their medication as directed.
"Like many others, I would be delighted to have an AIDS-free generation, but I think we really need to think that we can't rely on [only] one strategy," Ganges said.
Renewed optimism
In the meantime, researchers seeking to adapt the cure of the "Berlin patient" are still in the early stages of trying to figure out how to target the appropriate cells without harming others, Johnston said.
A vaccine for HIV also remains a possibility, although no one expects it anytime soon. One 2009 vaccine trial in Thailand reduced HIV infection rates by about 30 percent, which is the first evidence that an HIV vaccine might be effective, said Rick King, vice president of AIDS vaccine design at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, in New York City.
More studies have to be done to get a better idea of
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