TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1998

AIDS DEATHS DROP IN 1997

AIDS deaths across the United States dropped a stunning 44% in the first half of last year, showing the power of new treatments to control the disease. Doctors have known almost since they began widely prescribing potent three-drug combinations two years ago that fewer people with AIDS were dying, but even the experts seem surprised by the scope of their success. "We can't see the end of the epidemic, but it's the beginning of a new era," said Kevin DeCock of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The latest evidence of this change came Monday when CDC officials presented new data at the Fifth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. Deaths from AIDS peaked in 1994 and 1995, then nosed downward in 1996. Last year that fall accelerated. According to the CDC, 12,040 Americans died of AIDS in the first half of 1997, compared with 21,460 in the first half of 1996. The total nationwide figures for last year will not be tallied until July. However, they are already in for New York City, and they show an even more impressive change. Experts from the city's health department reported that AIDS deaths there fell 48% in 1997. This comes on top of a 29% decline in New York AIDS deaths in 1995. The New York data show that both men and women and people of all races are benefiting from the lifesaving breakthroughs in AIDS treatment.

AIDS VACCINE TEAM PROMISED MEDICINE

A physicians group that plans to test an AIDS vaccine with live strains of HIV in human beings said test subjects will get free medicine if they contract the disease. Answering criticism that it is moving too fast with the tests, the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care said it has lined up three pharmaceutical makers to provide free medicine to the volunteers if they need it. The group hopes to begin the trial in 2000 and have an effective, safe vaccine by 2007.