(New York City) Communities throughout the country are marking World AIDS Day, some; by offering free HIV testing others with vigils and still others with education programs.

In Washington, the White House announced that the Bush administration had already met its goal of treating two million people living with HIV/AIDS in the developing world by the end of the year.

The Centers for Disease Control admitted this summer what many AIDS activists had believed for some time -  the number of new HIV infections in the US had been under estimated.  The CDC said that new HIV infections actually were 40 percent higher annually than previously had been estimated.

In the U.S., the number of people with HIV/AIDS now stands at 1.1 million. At least 56,300 people in the country are infected with HIV annually. Of the new HIV infections among males, 53 percent were in men who have sex with men (MSM).

Among this group, 46 percent were white, 35 percent were black, and 19 percent were Hispanic.

When age was examined among MSM aged 13 – 29 years, the number of new HIV infections in blacks (5,220) was 1.6 times the number in whites (3,330) and 2.3 times the number in Hispanics (2,300).

Blacks, and Hispanics were represented disproportionately in 2006 among those with new HIV infections.

Yet despite massive education attempts, one in five people infected with the AIDS virus doesn’t know it according to the CDC, even though two years ago the government urged making HIV tests as common as cholesterol checks.

Eleven states that once required special consent for HIV testing have changed their laws, a key step to making an HIV test part of the standard battery that patients expect.

Still, many family physicians are ill informed about the ease of today’s rapid tests, which can cost as little as $15.

No more than 100 of the nation’s 5,000 emergency rooms routinely test for HIV in patients who aren’t critically ill, said Dr. John Bartlett of Johns Hopkins University, who co-chaired last month’s Forum for Collaborative HIV Research meeting. Yet because so many HIV patients are poor or uninsured, ERs are the health-care setting most likely to find them.

With a deepening financial crisis worldwide, there are concerns HIV/AIDS funding will be cut.

“We need President-elect Obama’s ‘Yes We Can’ approach to be applied to AIDS”, said Deborah Williams, chair of the Board of the Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in a statement.

“We have witnessed bold and inclusive campaigning. We need that same leadership to end exclusionary practices in the US and other countries, dedicate sustainable resources to scale up treatment and other services, and involve all stakeholders in developing and implementing a truly effective global effort.”

Yet there are some encouraging signs.

Early results from a federal survey suggest 2.4 million more people in 2007 than in 2006 said they had been tested at some point for HIV.

New York City’s Health and Hospitals Corporation, the nation’s largest municipal health system, has nearly tripled HIV testing – and late diagnoses dropped by about a third. New York’s state Medicaid program has increased testing by 30 percent.