Since the discovery of AIDS 20 years ago, the demographics of new cases have changed.

Jessica Frickey, public relations officer for the Center for Disease Control, said new infections among minorities are rising.

“African Americans make up 54 percent of new infections while only representing 13 percent of the population,” she said.

She said although more homosexuals are infected, heterosexual contraction of HIV and AIDS is on the rise in the U.S.

“Currently we estimate that 42 percent of infections are [from] men with men and 33 percent [are from] heterosexual contact,” Frickey said.

Patricia Young, HIV program manager for the Iowa Department of Public Health, said the infection rate across the country is still alarming.

“They estimate nationally there are 40 thousand new infections a year and we are looking, nationally, to decrease that by half,” Young said.

She said Iowa is different than the rest of the nation.

“Nationally the epidemic has shown a trend in heterosexual, teens and minorities infections are on the rise, but Iowa is different,” she said.

“In Iowa the largest portion is with men who have sex with men, but there has been a small increase in heterosexuals and minorities.”

Young said Iowa had a very slight increase in the number of cases compared to previous years, but it is still considered very low.

“We are considered a low incident state. As of June we had a 1,000 people living with AIDS, and we are considered one of the lowest states,” Young said.

Frickey said there has been great improvements in both prevention and treatment of the AIDS virus, but it is still a threat in the U.S. because many young people have not been personally affected like those who were around when the disease broke out.

“We have had a dramatic reduction of new infections over the past two decades, we have a generation who has not seen their friends die from AIDS,” she said. “Today AIDS is considered a disease that is manageable, but AIDS is a disease that kills you, there is no cure.”

Frickey said the CDC does provide prevention although some of it is provided with funding to other organizations.

“There are many different ways the CDC helps with prevention, mainly by providing funding to programs run by local, state and national organizations and those groups decide how to spend the money for prevention,” she said.