African-Americans made up about 47 percent of this group, whites 34 percent, and Hispanics 17 percent, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released at a conference on HIV/AIDS being held in Atlanta, Georgia, June 12-15.

Asian-Americans, Indians and native residents of Alaska make up only one percent of this group.

Men accounted for 74 percent of those infected by the AIDS virus.

Homosexual men represented the largest group (45 percent), followed by those infected through high-risk heterosexual relations (27 percent) and drug addicts using syringes (22 percent).

The CDC also warned that demographic tendencies could soon change because heterosexual African-Americans, women and other individuals infected with the AIDS virus following high-risk sexual relations now represented a larger group of those carrying the virus than those who already have AIDS.

"While treatment advances have been an obvious godsend to those living with the disease, it presents new challenges for prevention" said Ronald Valdiserri, with the CDC's National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention.

One of the biggest challenges, he said, is to have the ability to test about 25 percent of HIV-positives in the United States, who still don't know they have been infected.

Valdiserri noted that the majority of new infections result from contacts with people, who still don't know they are carriers of the HIV virus.

However, there are encouraging signs on this front. The share of adults who take HIV tests during routine medical exams more than doubled between 1998 and 2002, according to a study presented at the conference by Dr. Joseph Inungu of Central Michigan University.

However, according to the CDC, remains at between 40,000 a year.

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