There was a time in the 1980s and 1990s when there was one to two funerals a week for a friend who had died of AIDS, said Stephen Kovacev, who has been living with the disease for 15 years. 'It was numbing,'

"The good news is that more people infected with HIV are living much longer, treatments are much better," said Dr. Kenneth Mayer of Fenway Community Health in Boston. More people are also getting tested, he said.

The flip side, Mayer said, is that with more people living with HIV and feeling better, there's more "risk-taking behavior" and more infections. Younger people who don't know anyone with HIV or AIDS may not pay attention to it.

Less Dialogue About HIV and AIDS

"The epidemic is more invisible. AIDS is no longer a deadly disease to many people," Mayer said from the National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta.

About 40,000 new HIV cases have occurred each year in the United States since the 1990s, and the government has failed to meet its 2005 goal of cutting that number in half.

"There's less dialogue about HIV and AIDS. We don't see the public outcry and public awareness we saw 10 or 15 years ago," said Sophie Godley of the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts.

One to Two Funerals a Week

Stephen Kovacev, 51, has been living with AIDS for 15 years. The Cape Cod man said he's "here today" because of modern medicine, vitamins, exercise, diet and spirituality.

There was a time in the 1980s and 1990s when there was one to two funerals a week for a friend who had died of AIDS, Kovacev said. "It was numbing," he said. "The younger generation doesn't have a clue about what we went through."