Fewer people in New Zealand were diagnosed with HIV in 2009 than the previous year, but researchers say it is too early to know if that trend will continue.
Three children under the age of eight were among those diagnosed.
Some 151 people were diagnosed HIV positive through antibody testing last year, compared with a record high 184 in 2008. Twenty-eight cases progressed to AIDS.
A further 48 people, most of whom had first been diagnosed overseas, were reported through viral load testing.
The director of the AIDS Epidemiology Group, Dr Nigel Dickson, says a high number of people are continuing to be diagnosed, compared with the late 1990s.
The AIDS Foundation, which has the job of preventing the spread of HIV, says the statistics still show an epidemic and the fiscal cost of new infections is very high.
Three children, two of them siblings, were diagnosed after mother-to-child transmission. Neither mother knew they had HIV while pregnant.
