HIV cases rose 4% in Connecticut in 2017

Health officials in Connecticut said the number of human immunodeficiency virus cases in the state had increased by 4% in 2017.

The state's Department of Public Health recently released figures on HIV, which indicate that 281 people were recently diagnosed with the virus in 2017. This represents 269 cases in 2016. Nearly half of new cases concerned homobadual men.

More than 10,500 people in the state are living with HIV.

Health officials said that despite this increase, the number of new cases of HIV infection decreased by 15% between 2013 and 2017. The largest decrease was 19% among homobadual men.

However, there was a 57% increase in new HIV cases among black heterobadual women over the same five-year period.

Information on HIV and prevention is available at http://positivepreventionct.org/.