The following maps, created by the Maine Bureau of Health, illustrate the spread of AIDS cases over the past two decades.  Click on each map to see a larger, clearer version.

AIDS AND HIV INFECTIONS

Figure 1 below illustrates Maine AIDS diagnoses by year of diagnosis from 1982 to 2001, and reported deaths among person with AIDS from 1982 to 2001. The graph shows a general decline in both new diagnoses and deaths, with the number of deaths in recent years at their lowest point since the 1980's. The number of new diagnoses, which increased during 1999, declined both in 2000 and 2001. Overall declines are due in large part to widespread use of effective medical treatments for HIV disease.

The figure below shows the reported mode of transmission of "People Living with Diagnosed HIV Infection," which includes people living with AIDS or HIV according to confidential disease reports made to the Bureau of Health.

According to these data, several key populations continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV in Maine. These include males who have unsafe sex with males, who comprise 51% of people with diagnosed HIV for whom mode of transmission is known; injection drug users, at 19%; and those who had a combined risk of both male-to-male sexual contact and injection drug use, at 4%.

A significant number of people living with diagnosed HIV were infected through heterosexual contact. Thirteen percent were infected through heterosexual contact with a partner known to have engaged in high risk activity or who was HIV -infected. In addition, another nine percent of people living with HIV reported heterosexual contact as their only risk, with no high-risk partners identified. It is possible that an individual in this category was infected through heterosexual sex without knowing partner risk factors. It is also possible that some were infected through other at-risk activities, such as injection drug use or male-to-male sex, and chose not to disclose these stigmatized behaviors.

The number of people for whom risk is misclassified is not known. People infected through contaminated blood products and mother-to-infant transmissions represent a small number of people living with diagnosed HIV infection, with no transmissions for either of these categories occurring in recent years.

While the non-White and Hispanic population of Maine comprises approximately 3.5% of the state’s total population (2000 US Census), 12% of people living with diagnosed HIV infection are from racial/ethnic minority groups. These groups include African- Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asians/Pacific Islanders. It is important to keep in mind that race/ethnicity is often incorrectly classified or under-reported for patients receiving medical services, and those reporting biases may be reflected here.

As following figure illustrates, age ranges reflecting age at HIV diagnosis are broadly distributed among "People Living with Diagnosed HIV Infection," with the majority of individuals receiving an HIV diagnosis at between 25 and 40 years of age. Nine percent were diagnosed at under 25 years of age.

Only one percent were under 13 years of age when diagnosed; no perinatal HIV transmissions have been reported in Maine since 1996. In order to continue effective prevention of perinatal transmission in Maine, the Bureau of Health strongly recommends that all pregnant women be offered voluntary HIV testing and counseling. The CDC estimates that, nationally, half of all new HIV infections occur among people ages 13 to 24 years. In Maine, data shows that slightly more than one-quarter of people living with diagnosed HIV tested positive before age 30, which could mean that many were infected in their late teens or early twenties.

Source: Maine Bureau of Health, Department of Human Services