It hasn't gone away

Before that, Correa lived like many of his young peers, usually practicing safe sex but sometimes not. And like many of his friends, he felt invincible. "After my friend was diagnosed I went from one-night stands to no one-night stands," he says. "It's sad that I had to see it this way."

Federal health officials reported last month that the number of new AIDS cases was up for the first time in a decade. Along with a continued rise in new cases of HIV infection, the numbers are raising concerns that AIDS may be making a resurgence after years of progress had been made in battling it. Health experts are concerned that the statistics reflect a growing sense of public complacency about the disease, especially among homosexual and bisexual men. New HIV infection rates rose an alarming 7.1% among that group last year.

For years HIV cases were waning, a sign that prevention and education programs were getting through to the public. During that period there was also a dramatic reduction in AIDS deaths, which continued to drop last year despite the rise in HIV infection. But officials at the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fear that the HIV numbers may portend a rise in AIDS-related deaths years from now.

CDC officials say the increase in HIV cases cannot be attributed to a single group. However, officials are particularly concerned about younger Americans because regional data show that people in their 20s account for a sizable number of new diagnoses. Moreover, data show rising incidences of other sexually transmitted diseases in younger Americans, further suggesting that they are not heeding advice about condom use and the hazards of unprotected sex.

Experts said other possible reasons for the rise in HIV cases include the fact that more people are being tested, and an increase in substance abuse.

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'People are still dying'

Many Americans in their late teens and 20s did not witness firsthand the devastation caused by AIDS in the 1980s and early 1990s. "They are not seeing in such a visible way the consequences of HIV and AIDS," said Darrel Cummings, 46, chief operations officer for the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center. "One of the messages we need to make clear is the fact that people are still dying in huge numbers, and living with the disease can be a horrible experience."