After last week's CDC study found the HIV rate in the US was 40 percent higher than original estimates, we wanted to take a look at the blogosphere and see what was being said around this concerning subject.

Overall, mainstream media attention on HIV has faded greatly in the last couple of years. However, this is not the case with social media; in fact, we found the topic widely discussed within blogs. Looking at conversations generated since July 22, we found an average of 10 posts a day from bloggers identified as influential on the subject. Overall, there were 205,219 total posts related to HIV in that time period, which translates to 13,681 posts a day.

What's specifically being discussed? In these conversations, 34 percent of the influencers are talking about HIV risks, and 18 percent are discussing prevention.

As for the opinion leaders, the most influential blog on the topic of HIV is HIV This Week, providing weekly updates on HIV-related news. The most influential post is from Our Bodies Our Blog on July 31, which discusses a report from the Black AIDS Institute stating that African Americans are still at risk more than other races and groups in the States. This is a common theme in the last few weeks in the blogosphere, with almost one third of the influential posts discussing this topic, including the South Georgia HIV/AIDS blog, which looks at the failure by the government to combat the growing problem.

Other popular topics being discussed about HIV include testing, treatment and the affect other diseases have on the progression of HIV.

What have we learned from our research? Traditional media reporting around HIV has died down - the disease is not widely covered, at least not compared to the vast amount of people it has affected. However, bloggers are passionately keeping the conversation alive, discussing prevention and the need for even more education when it comes to this still very prevalent disease.