ATLANTA - Although Southern states have been urged to watch for signs of increased HIV outbreaks on college campuses, local health workers say federal officials aren't responding with more funds despite the fear that infected students will further spread the AIDS virus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it doesn't have the money to do widespread testing following the discovery of an increase in HIV infections among male black college students in North Carolina.

"I'm mortified more isn't being done," said Dr. Peter Leone, HIV medical director at the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. "It suggests apathy at the federal level."

In the first documented outbreak of HIV on U.S. college campuses, North Carolina researchers were shocked to find that students represented more than 1 in 5 of the state's new HIV infections among 18- to 30-year-olds. College students were 3.5 times more likely than nonstudents to become infected.

"Twenty years into the... HIV epidemic and we're seeing a re-emergence of HIV in a young male population - that's disturbing," Leone said. "It's our best and brightest who are getting infected - it will be felt for the next five, 10, 15 years."

The increase was first noticed in late 2002, and officials now believe it began in mid-2001 and is still continuing. They worry that unwitting infected students will spread the virus across the country when they return to their hometowns during class breaks or after graduation.

The North Carolina researchers found 84 newly infected male college students over the past three years, 73 of them black. The cases were linked to 37 North Carolina colleges. Up to a dozen cases related to the outbreak also were found in schools in Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.

While those numbers are small, they are worrisome because they are higher than expected. Health officials fear there could be many more undetected cases.

Despite the alarm, the government has done little to curb the outbreak, Leone said. No additional federal funding has been provided to health agencies in the South, he added.

"There's no way we've diagnosed all the infections," Leone said. "We have every reason to believe there's continuing ongoing transmission."