FACTBOX: AIDS infects 56,000 a year in U.S.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New estimates of the AIDS epidemic in the United States show it is more severe than previously thought, with the disease infecting 56,300 people every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here are some facts about AIDS, which spreads via blood, through sexual intercourse and in mother's milk, in the United States from the CDC:

-- 56,300 people became newly infected with the human immunodeficiency virus in 2006, 40 percent more than CDC's former estimate of 40,000. The CDC said actual infection rates have not gone up, but that better methods of measuring new diagnosed infections led to the fresh estimates.

-- Numbers of new infections peaked in the mid-1980s at 130,000 a year, falling to a low of about 50,000 in the early 1990s.

-- Men who have sex with other men, like gays and bisexuals, accounted for 28,700, or 53 percent, of new HIV infections in 2006.

-- Heterosexuals accounted for 31 percent, or 16,800, of estimated new HIV infections in 2006.

-- Injection drug users accounted for 12 percent, or 6,600, a decline of more than 80 percent since 1990.

-- Men accounted for 73 percent of new infections.

-- HIV strikes young people disproportionately, with more new infections among young people aged 13 to 29 than any other age group, with 34 percent, or 19,200, new infection in this age group.

-- AIDS also hits blacks harder, with an annual infection rate of 83.7 per 100,000 population of black Americans versus 11.5 new infections per 100,000 whites.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox)