World AIDS Day will mark the beginning of a renewed effort to "end the silence.

Wednesday, December 01, 1999

World AIDS Day will mark the beginning of a renewed effort to "end the silence."

That’s the theme of this year’s awareness effort: "End the silence -listen, learn, live."

The statistics about new cases of infection and deaths are, indeed, grim. Also fearful is an apparent attempt by the Minnesota Legislature to break-down legislation that mandated schools teach AIDS education.

The backdrop for this year’s awareness campaign is dark.

The 12th annual event will be observed with a 7 p.m. Wednesday community ecumenical service at St. Augustine Catholic Church followed by a candlelight walk to St. Olaf Lutheran Church for fellowship afterwards.

Distribution of the AIDS awareness ribbons for World AIDS Day is coordinated by the Mower County AIDS Task Force and Mower County chapter of the American Red Cross.

Once again, the news continues to be grim.

Deaths from AIDS are increasing worldwide, according to a report by the United Nation’s AIDS program. This year, about 2.6 million people worldwide will die of AIDS.

That estimate means roughly one in 20 deaths on the globe now occurs because of AIDS, a disease unknown two decades ago.

In all, about 16.3 million people have died of AIDS.

In addition, about 5.6 million new infections with the human immuno-deficiency virus will occur this year, raising the number of people currently living with the disease to about 33.6 million.

"HIV continues to spread nearly unabated in many parts of the world," said Peter Piot, director of UNAIDS, an organization run by the United Nations, World Health Organization, World Bank and several other agencies.

On Tuesday, the Minnesota AIDS Project held its State of AIDS Conference in St. Paul to kick-off today’s World AIDS Day campaign.

As of July 1, there were 6,057 cases of HIV virus or AIDS reported in Minnesota since 1982 and 1,153 of the victims have died.

Another 4,904 people are living with the HIV virus or AIDS in Minnesota.

The decline in AIDS deaths has slowed greatly in the past year and may have reached a plateau, according to MAP.

After dropping 68 percent from 1996 to 1997, the national rate of decline slowed to just 15 percent in 1998. In Minnesota, AIDS deaths declined 69 percent from 1996 to 1997 and 17 percent in 1998.

The Minnesota Department of Health estimates there are 2,600 people in the state infected with HIV and do not know it.

Between July 1998 and June 1999, HIV and AIDS infections were reported at a rate of almost one per day.

During the past year, 60 percent of the newly reported cases of HIV or AIDS in Minnesota were among men who have sex with men.

"Ending the silence means listening to young people and hearing their concerns about issues like sexuality and HIV," Aggie Letheiser, assistant State Health Commissioner said.

"It also means encouraging young people to communicate with each other," Letheiser said. "We want to generate an ongoing discussion about how to respect yourself and other people and the importance of providing support for people living with HIV."

"We want them to talk about ways to protect them self and others from HIV infection. We want to encourage them to become actively involved in halting the spread of AIDS," Letheiser said.

Lorraine Teel, executive director of MAP, issued a grim warning.

"Nowhere is prevention needed more than among our nation’s youths, who are quickly becoming the next AIDS crisis," Teel said.

"As the average age of people acquiring HIV plummets, we now live in a state where one of every two new HIV infections is among a person under 25," Teel said.

"Teens and young adults are facing daily the challenge of living with and dying from the disease we know how to prevent," she said.

A firm believer in prevention education, Teel reminded that 10 years ago the Minnesota Legislature passed a law mandating schools teach AIDS education.

Last spring, the Legislature attempted to dismantle the same law, according to Teel.

"Rather than heralding the second generation of AIDS with more aggressive legislation to combat the spread of HIV, many of our state’s elected leaders fought to destroy one of the only such laws in the nation that utilizes schools to keep young people safe from the jaws of HIV," she said.