WASHINGTON: A new estimate of how many Americans have the AIDS virus puts the number at about 1.1million, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.

The CDC numbers, based on 2006 data, show the population living with HIV is growing as people become newly infected and as more patients survive thanks to HIV drugs. The report also suggests that past estimates that more than 1 million Americans were living with HIV overstated the actual total number of people with HIV infections at the time.

Its most recent nationwide estimate of 1 million had been given for 2003, and using the new methods the CDC figured that 994,000 were living with HIV that year. "These data really show the continued impact that the epidemic is having on Americans, and they really reinforce the severe toll that is experienced in multiple communities.

To make the new estimates, the CDC used information on new HIV diagnoses taken from 40 states with the best data and AIDS diagnoses and deaths taken from all 50 states, as well as a statistical method called "back-calculation." Globally, 33 million people have HIV and 25 million have died of it.

The CDC estimated that about one in five 232,700 of the1.1 million people infected with the human immuno deficiency virus that causes AIDS did not know they were infected.
The total U.S. population is 300 million.