The United States is losing ground again in its fight against AIDS with blacks, particularly African-American women, suffering most from the resurgent spread of the virus.

　　Health experts blame a lack of education resources while American adults are showing growing complacency to the risks they run.

　　The number of cases of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) fell by 50 percent from 1993 to 2001 before rising two percent in 2002, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which releases its latest figures Wednesday.

　　The number of deaths hit an annual peak of 52,000 in 1995 before seeing major falls with the advent of new medications. Those falls continued through 2001, but the following year saw a rise to 16,371 AIDS deaths, according to the CDC.

　　More than 500,000 people are now believed to have died from AIDS in the United States, with almost 900,000 estimated to be infected with the virus.

　　"It's a pretty bad situation," said Sherry Kaplan, coordinator for the Center for Positive Connection in Miami, a private help centre in one of the worst-hit regions of the United States.

　　"It's a tragedy that there is no wake-up call, that we have our own epidemic going on here in the US and the money isn't coming in, that there is no proper education prevention," added Kaplan, who has been HIV positive for 17 years.

　　Kaplan said that people now show "a more casual attitude" to sex because they believe medication will help them with AIDS.