It can happen to you

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Statistics compiled by the World Health Organization show that 2.3 million people died from HIV/AIDS during 1997 and 5.8 million adults and children were newly infected during that same 12-month period.

Those are the most recent figures available from the United Nations' global HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance team.

The team reports that child deaths - deaths of innocents caused by tragic mistakes or foolish risks taken by their parents - number close to 500,000 in that year.

Health authorities refer to the HIV/AIDS situation as an epidemic. We're all at risk. You are at risk. But you can do something about it. You're not powerless. Every worker in this growing field wishes for unemployment, for a good reason to go looking for other work.

You can make that happen. It won't happen right away. It might be frustrating because you don't get an immediate, concrete reaction or reward if you do the right thing for yourself, your family and your planet. But you have to believe that if you decide to never share intravenous needles and never, ever have unprotected sex with someone other than your exclusive long-term (uninfected!) partner, then you are helping to put up a firewall that will stop the spread of this deadly menace.

We're all at each other's mercy, here. We all have to share the responsibility. And if someday soon scientists find a way to kill the virus and save all those lives, we'll all be able to share some of the credit for stopping this scourge before it stops us.

By practicing safe sex, you are joining the forces with doctors and researchers all over the world who are working to neutralize this world-wide threat.

Keri C., an Aboriginal person living with HIV/AIDS, works at the Feather of Hope Aboriginal AIDS Prevention Society in Edmonton. She contracted the virus at the age of 15 and has been living with it for 18 years. Keri is in good health and works with young people who have been infected.

"Everybody thinks they're invincible, nowadays," she said. "Young people are misinformed. There's not enough prevention. Kids are listening, but they're not listening enough."

Keri said young people need to realize that it's natural to feel resentment that they live during a time when sex can kill. They need to realize that feeling anger, that feeling the desire to lash out or rebel against the unfairness of this reality, is a normal impulse, but to do it by having unprotected sex or sharing needles is not the way to do it because they're hurting themselves in a most dangerous way.

"It's your life," she added, speaking to young people who have not been infected. "But you have to listen to us. If you don't, what's the future going to look like? This spiral will continue."