WASHINGTON, June 13 (Xinhuanet) -- More than 1 million Americans are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, with nearly half of them being blacks, showed the latest data released Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

    It is for the first time that the US HIV-positive population totaled more than 1 million since the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. Health experts said the number shows more AIDS patients are living longer thanks to the advancement in medicine. On the other hand, the high number reflects a failure in HIV prevention.

    An estimated 1,039,000 to 1,185,000 Americans were living with HIV at the end of 2003, the CDC told the 2005 National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta.

    Forty-seven of the US HIV carriers were blacks. However, blacksonly make up 13 percent of the US population. The CDC predicted even disproportionately higher HIV infections among blacks in the coming years.

    Whites and Hispanics accounted for 34 percent and 17 percent ofthe US HIV-positive population. Gay and bisexual men accounted for45 percent, the CDC estimated.

    The CDC said the make-up of the US HIV-positive population would change in the coming years to reflect a higher proportion ofinfections among blacks, women and individuals infected by high-risk heterosexual contact.

    Since the late 1990s, the US new HIV infections were estimated to be steady at 40,000 a year and the deaths from AIDS at 16,000 ayear. But health experts have been warning of a possible resurgence of the epidemic, which eased in the early 1990s after the introduction of antiretroviral medication.

    AIDS has killed about 500,000 Americans and at least 22 millionpeople worldwide since 1981. Enditem