By Matthew Bigg

ATLANTA, March 8 (Reuters) - African American men are nearly seven times more likely to be diagnosed with HIV than white men, according to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released on Thursday.

Blacks represent 13 percent of the U.S. population but account for nearly half of Americans living with the disease and 40 percent of AIDS deaths and 61 percent of all new diagnoses of people aged 13-24 are black.

The report, which is based on 2001-2005 data, does not reveal a dramatic increase in the rate of HIV infection among African Americans and it shows a significant decline in black mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

But it cements a picture of an epidemic that affects the black community disproportionately, according to Robert Janssen, director of division of HIV/AIDS prevention at CDC.

"What is beginning to happen is a recognition of the severity of the problem," Janssen said in an interview on Thursday.

"Black men particularly are hard hit. The HIV diagnosis rate among black men is seven times higher than among white men," he said, adding that men who have sex with men account for around half of those cases.

In Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia around 3 percent of blacks are living with AIDS, a rate higher than Senegal's and on a par with Cameroon in central African, he said.

Blacks do not engage in riskier sexual behavior than other groups but high HIV rates meant African Americans who have sex with other African Americans were more likely to contract HIV than people within other ethnic groups, he said.

Federal allocations of money to the CDC for fighting AIDS within the black community has increased 10-fold since 1988 and now stands at $30 million, Janssen said.

The CDC was expanding prevention services, increasing opportunities for diagnoses and encouraging all blacks to know their HIV status, developing new interventions and mobilizing broader action within the black community, he said.

It also organized a meeting for black community leaders on Thursday as part of that effort.

"NOT IN MY FAMILY"

Black leaders have been criticized for being slower to mobilize against HIV and AIDS than leaders of other groups such as gay whites and Janssen said stigma over sexual issues within the black community had been damaging.

"Certainly (there is) a sense of stigma related to homophobia. There is certainly a stigma around how HIV is transmitted. There has not been a recognition in the community of how serious the problem is," he said.

The reasons why the black community had not provided the necessary leadership over the issue are complex, according to Ivory Brown, an African American entertainment, sports and family lawyer who has written about the issue.

"There is a silence. I don't want to say the African American community is not an open community. We are more prone to adopt people and issues that are cast-offs to the rest of society," she said.

"I don't believe that ... our religion makes our people homophobic. What I do believe is that a lack of education and information makes it is easier for our community to turn a blind eye to the problem," she said.

Brown was a contributor to "Not In My Family", a book edited by Gil Robertson, in which dozens of black celebrities, politicians, civil rights leaders, academics and others write essays about AIDS in the black community.

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