By the end of 2014, it was estimated that there were 1.2 million individuals living with HIV infection in the United States. It's also estimated that about 50,000-55,000 new cases of HIV occur in the United States each year. Worldwide, there are an estimated 35-37 million individuals with HIV. The unfortunate part dealing with the history of this epidemic is that there are now at least 35 million people who have died from this viral illness - similar to the magnitude of death and destruction caused by the 1918 flu epidemic and the bubonic plague in the medieval times.