US still faces 50,000 new HIV infections each year

Free HIV screenings
Tyshuanna Jackson had her blood drawn for HIV/AIDS and STD testing by Ernest Johnson of John Wesley Community Health Institute in one of its mobile units during a health fair last summer in Los Angeles.
Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Approximately 50,000 new HIV infections are diagnosed each year despite improvements in treatment and prevention efforts in middle-class America, according to a recent New York Times report.

Government statistics show that the black population faces the most risk of contracting the virus.

Nationally, more than 1.1 million people currently live with HIV. In Minnesota, there were more than 7,500 known cases of HIV as of Dec. 31, 2012. That year, there were 315 new cases reported, an 8 percent increase from 2011, according to the Minnesota AIDS Project.

More from the New York Times:

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Nationally, 25 percent of new infections are in black and Hispanic men, and in New York City it is 45 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the city's health department.

Nationally, when only men under 25 infected through gay sex are counted, 80 percent are black or Hispanic — even though they engage in less high-risk behavior than their white peers.

On The Daily Circuit, we look at the latest in research and the current outreach and prevention efforts.

LEARN MORE ABOUT HIV AND AIDS:

US AIDS statistics
(U.S. Department of Health & Human Services)

How Will AIDS Be Eradicated?
In the war on H.I.V., we have seen successes in some African nations and stubborn patterns of new infection in developed nations like the U.S. Around the world, there are obstacles to prevention and treatment. How will they be overcome? (New York Times)

HIV patients 'cured' of Aids suffer relapse
"Through this research we have discovered [that] the HIV reservoir is deeper and more persistent than previously known and that our current standards of probing for HIV may not be sufficient to inform us if long-term HIV remission is possible if antiretroviral therapy is stopped," Dr Henrich said. (The Independent)