Cases of HIV infection are on the rise in Canada, says a sweeping international report card on HIV/AIDS released Monday.

The report says that by the end of 2004, almost 58,000 people were living with HIV in Canada.

The United Nations agency UNAIDS says over the past five years, the rate of new cases of HIV infection has increased by 20 per cent in Canada.

In the year 2000, there were 2,111 new cases of HIV infection. But by 2004 the number was 2,529.

The largest single group of people of being infected remains men who have sex with men. At the end of last year, 45 per cent of the newly diagnosed cases were in this group.

However, almost a third of all new cases – 30 per cent – came about through heterosexual transmission.

The remainder of new cases come from intravenous drug usage. By the end of 2004, women accounted for a quarter of all new diagnoses and young women aged 15-29 appear to be the most at risk of becoming infected.

"There are some people who are not aware they are infected due to the stigma and fear of being tested," Kathleen Cummings, the executive director of the AIDS Committee of Ottawa told CBC.ca.

"We've still got a lot of work to do to support people going in to be tested," she said.

Part of the problem, Cummings suggested, is a fear of possibly getting in trouble with the law for being infected and transmitting the disease.

"There's a risk of more people not being tested because of fear of criminalization," she said.

UNAIDS also found that, of all the HIV diagnoses stemming from heterosexual transmission in Canada, a quarter were among people from so-called high-prevalence countries, including sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean.

That has spurred groups in the forefront of the HIV/AIDS effort to consider new approaches in education and prevention.

"We are looking into doing research on HIV/AIDS in these communities," Tyler Stiem of the AIDS Committee of Toronto told CBC.ca.

"There's a need for funding to be stepped up," he said.

"The face of AIDS is changing in places like Toronto."

Beyond the data on HIV infection, UNAIDS also looked at how many cases of AIDS were diagnosed in 2004.

The report says that while the number of AIDS cases has declined since 1994, a growing share of the new diagnoses is among black Canadians and aboriginals.