After years of gradual increases, the number of people diagnosed with H-I-V and AIDS in Iowa is on the decline, but officials say the numbers are still inconclusive. Randy Mayer, chief of the bureau on H-I-V, S-T-D and Hepatitis at the Iowa Department of Public Health, says only about one-third of Iowans have been tested for H-I-V.

Mayer says Iowa had 122 diagnoses statewide last year and the preliminary numbers show the 2014 total will drop.

With the Affordable Care Act, he says there should be no charge and no co-pay for an H-I-V test. There are around 21-hundred people living with H-I-V and AIDS in Iowa, and Mayer says the prevalence has been predictable across the state. He says about 75-percent of the diagnoses happen in ten different Iowa metro areas, with about 25-percent in rural areas. As of last year, AIDS had killed more than 36-million people worldwide, while an estimated 35-million are living with H-I-V.