Reported AIDS cases in Illinois have gone up for the second consecutive year according to statistics released by the Illinois Department of Health.

Dr. John R. Lumpkin, state public health director, said the increase may be contributed to better compliance in reporting older cases rather than a sudden resurgence in the disease.

According to numbers calculated by the Illinois Department of Public Health, in 2000, Coles County had three reported cases compared to one in 1999, one in 1998, four in 1997 and none in 1996. Of the surrounding counties, Edgar only had one case reported in 2000, Douglas had only two reported in 1997, Cumberland has no reported cases and Champaign had six in 2000, 11 in 1999, seven in 1998, 20 in 1997 and seven in 1996.

Tom Schafer, Illinois Department of Public Health, said there were 1,781 AIDS cases reported in 2000, bringing the cumulative total in Illinois since 1981 to 24,934. Illinois has the sixth highest total in the United States, Schafer said.

The number of AIDS cases has increased by 224 since 1999; however, there has been an overall drop of 41 percent in the state’s AIDS caseload since 1994, Schafer said.

Lumpkin said that the increases reported in the past two years, including a 24 percent jump from 1998 to 1999, can be attributed, in large part, to health care providers heeding the Department’s call for better reporting of HIV and AIDS cases.

Of the 1,781 cases reported last year, only 36 percent, or 634, were actually diagnosed and reported in 2000. The rest of the cases were diagnosed in previous years, some as far back as 1988, Schafer said. In 1999, 41 percent of the 1,557 cases reported were diagnosed that year.

Eric Davidson, assistant director for health education and promotion – health services, said that one reason for the decrease in reported numbers of AIDS cases is that in the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, many individuals were diagnosed with full-blown AIDS without having been tested for HIV. Today, because of increased awareness and more frequent and earlier testing, people diagnosed with HIV can make medical and behavioral changes that can slow down the weakening of the immune system and the opportunistic infections that result in a person being diagnosed with AIDS, Davidson said.

The number of AIDS cases reported to the Department increased in mid-1999 after a concentrated effort was launched by the state and local health departments to inform health care providers of the new patient code identifier system for reporting HIV cases and to emphasize to them the importance of reporting AIDS cases.

The new patient code identifier system is kept confidential by the state so information on the system is unavailable.

Joyce Zschau, HIV educator at the Coles County Health Department, said that there are two different forms of testing, confidential and anonymous. Anonymous testing is the only form offered at the Coles County Health Department. The anonymous test provides that the person wanting testing schedules an appointment and gives the department a number only. They do not give their name. “Everything is done on a number system,” Zschau said.

After the test is completed the person is then called back in for consultation. Still no name is used, only a number that the person helps to decide so it is easily remembered. At the end of the month, the health department completes a survey recording the number of tests they have performed that month and any positive test results. This survey is where the Illinois Department of Health gets the numbers for its yearly release of statistics, Zschau said.

With the implementation of the new patient code identifier system that health care providers use, now doctors can test their patients using a confidential testing method, where the names of the patients are known, but are not released.

Schafer said that after doctors received records over the past 18 months, they found numerous cases that were identified in previous years but, for whatever reason, were not turned in.

“There are numerous factors that may explain the increased numbers, but the inescapable fact, no matter whether the statistics are up or down, is we still have much work to do before AIDS is brought under control,” Lumpkin said. “We must never lose sight of the fact HIV/AIDS is a preventable disease and the best way to stop its spread is by providing the public with information about how it is transmitted.”

Lumpkin said prevention has become more difficult since the 1990’s because caseloads were dropping. Getting people to heed the warnings became more difficult. He also said that medical advances in the treatment of HIV, although adding years to the lives of people, added to the people’s complacency Lumpkin said.

“Unfortunately, a growing number of people appear to be relying too much on treatment of advances, ignoring prevention messages and returning to high-risk behavior,” Lumpkin said. “Each new generation needs to be reminded that HIV and AIDS are life-threatening diseases and about the importance of prevention.”

Davidson said that in a study completed in the early 1990’s by Richard Keeling, a former director of health services at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, it was found that one out of every 500 students on a college campus has HIV.

While originally the AIDS epidemic primarily affected white men, it has diversified and now disproportionately impacts African Americans and is increasing faster among women, Schafer said. African Americans represented 59 percent of the new cases reported in 2000 and whites represented 26 percent. Hispanics accounted for 14 percent. Men accounted for 1,354 of the cases or 76 percent compared with 427 cases among women. Women represent 24 percent of the cases reported in 2000 compared with only 7 percent in 1990.