An Iowa public health officer said there is no evidence that AIDS cases among those 21 and under are on the rise in the state.

In a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study, it found that one-fourth of all newly reported AIDS cases in the United States are in people under the age of 21.

The CDC, however, has compiled data from a number of states, not including Iowa, and have found no more than 13 percent of people under the age of 21 have been reported to be infected with HIV.

Last year, 103 people in Iowa were diagnosed with HIV, and of those only one person was under 21.

Randy Mayer, HIV surveillance coordinator for the Iowa Department of Public Health, said he disputes the reports that AIDS cases are increasing in younger people.

“I have been unable to verify that. There is no national HIV reporting system,” Mayer said.

Normally 1 percent to 3 percent of people diagnosed with HIV are under the age of 21. Iowa reports HIV cases by name to the CDC every year, but they have only been doing this since July of 1998, Mayer said.

It’s possible the numbers are skewed, Mayer said, because people don’t have a way of knowing how long they have had HIV. Sometimes people don’t get tested for HIV until years after they have been infected. People may become infected before they turn 21 but not get tested until their mid-20s.

“Currently, the CDC is working on getting a better way of detecting incidents,” Mayer said. As of right now, there is no way of knowing how long a patient has been infected with HIV, but a new test is being developed to determine if the patient was infected a while ago or more recently.

Kris Davis, a nurse practitioner at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, said without treatment, it usually takes about 10 years from the time a patient is infected with HIV to being diagnosed with AIDS. Two to three years after developing AIDS, most patients die, she said.

“There is a range of eight to 15 years of surviving with HIV,” Davis said.

A Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report said the mother-to-child HIV transmission rate has been almost completely eliminated in prenatal cases due to medical advances. Today, children infected in this way often live into their teens or 20s because of antiviral drugs.

“Antiviral medicines block the virus from replicating,” Davis said. “They help protect the immune system.”

There have been effective drug combination techniques since 1996, and today there are an enormous amount of antiviral drugs on the market. The reason for the increasing number of these medicines is because some HIV/AIDS patients become resistant to the medicines they take, Davis said.

When this happens, patients are forced to try different drug combinations. “It’s really important that they take all of their medicine or, else they will become resistant more quickly,” Davis said.

Mayer said side effects of the drugs can make them hard to stick with. “Some people tolerate it well, some don’t.”

This is why some patients choose to go on “drug holidays,” which is when they stop taking all of their medication for a period of time to give them a break from the side effects, he said.

Brian Dunn, health promotion coordinator at the Student Health Center, said the center offers free, confidential HIV testing for anyone from 1 to 4 p.m Wednesdays and Thursdays. They also provide counseling on HIV and the risks associated with it.

The Student Health Center usually sees about 30 people each month for HIV testing.

“People who are at risk should be tested,” Dunn said. However, it can take up to three months from the time of infection for enough antibodies to be present in the blood and be detected in an HIV test.