A decade-long HIV study reveals that in 2002, 24 out of every 100,000 individuals aged 13 and above were newly diagnosed with HIV. In 2011, the figure dropped to 16 out of every 100,000 people.

The study was based on HIV cases gathered from the health departments of all 50 states.

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The Journal of the American Medical Association uploaded the said findings online on Saturday in time for the International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia. The study is part of a special report to be presented at the conference which commences today.

"It means treatment is working. It means people who are infected are getting into care and not progressing to AIDS," said Thomas Coates, associate director of the AIDS Institute at UCLA.

Although researchers found "statistically significant decreases" in diagnosis rates across most demographic groups, the most remarkable changes were found in women ages 35-44 and in individuals of multiple races.

There were no statistical changes amongst Asians, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders.

Unfortunately, the same didn't ring true for some groups of gay men. There is an apparent increase in HIV cases in gay men 45 years and older and in men who had sex with young men.

"Because of delays in diagnosis, temporal trends in diagnoses and variations among groups may reflect earlier changes in HIV incidence," the study noted.

According to the study, the increase is due to unprotected sex.

Coates noted that most of the young men who get infected by HIV are African-American and have no access to care. He advocated for health services to be made more available.

The World Health Organization approximated that 35 million people around the world have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. It is estimated that 1.1 million people in the United States are infected with the virus although in some cases, individuals may not know they have it. 

TagsHIV, AIDS, Journal of the American Medical Association, International AIDS Conference, Australia