Between 1993 and 1998, AIDS deaths had dropped to just below 18,000 a year from a high of more than 45,000. Rising indifference to morality in society has caused the CDC to warn of another upswing in HIV infections.

During the same period, hepatitis C infections skyrocketed by a dizzying 260 percent-a rate of increase that by 2010 will cause it to leapfrog past AIDS as a killer in the United States. Infections are caused through dirty needles, blood transfusions or tattoos.

Four million people in the United States and 200 million people worldwide are infected with hepatitis C; 200,000 people get treatment in the United States, and that could double in four years.

David Bernstein, chief of hepatology at North Shore University Hospital in Mannhasset, New York, on Long Island, has hosted a rising flow of patients in recent years, among them Wall Street professionals who have just failed a physical and learned some staggering news: They are infected with hepatitis C.

This master of stealth can remain dormant in the liver for up to 20 years before symptoms such as jaundice, fatigue and abdominal pain appear. By the time hepatitis C has been diagnosed, it is already in its chronic stage, when serious liver scarring and the threat of cancer and death exist.

Like other plagues, hepatitis C has stymied scientists. No vaccine is available, and scientists have been unable to grow it in the lab. In the race pitting science against microbes, however, the spread of hepatitis C looks likely to outrun a cure. "The disease isn't becoming an epidemic," says Dr. Bernstein. "It is an epidemic."

Sources: Newsmax.com, Forbes.