This year’s message: Stay on guard against AIDS

Bob Shemeligian

Monday, Nov. 17, 1997 | 12:47 p.m.

It's been nearly 10 years since Brent Boozer died of AIDS. Still, his sister, Kay Velardo, thinks about him every day.

"Anything and everything reminds me of Brent," said Velardo, 43, a billing manager at Community Counseling Center. "He was such an absolutely intricate part of my life. And every time my daughter accomplishes something, such as her graduation, I think how nice it would have been if Brent were still alive."

Boozer, a Las Vegas native and a 1960 graduate of Rancho High School, died on May 4, 1988. He was 47.

On Dec. 1, more people will remember Boozer, who served as a computer programmer for the state attorney general's office until he became too ill to work.

On that date, World AIDS Day, Boozer's name will be printed on one of 21 life-size figures commemorating local residents who have died of AIDS. The figures will be placed in the rotunda of the Clark County Health District.

This year's World AIDS Day theme is "Give Children Hope in a World with AIDS." The mission is to emphasize that even people under age 18 are affected -- directly or indirectly -- by AIDS.

Various officials stress that despite persistent myths that the danger of exposure to the AIDS virus is not nearly as great as it was a decade ago, and that those who are in danger are gay men and intravenous drug users, the virus is still "out there."

"We're testing every day for HIV, and we're still bringing in positive results," said Cherie Maietta, health district HIV prevention specialist, who added that adults and teenagers of both sexes test positive.

Tammy Nunnally, spokeswoman for the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control, noted that last year for the first time the numbers of Americans who were diagnosed with the AIDS virus and who died of AIDS decreased compared with the year before.

But she cautioned that the decrease was not dramatic, and that "AIDS definitely is still a risk. There are 50,000 new infections each year, all of which can be prevented, and the numbers are increasing fastest among heterosexual men and women -- even more so among women."

According to the CDC, 57,200 Americans were diagnosed with AIDS last year, a slight drop from 61,300 in 1995. In 1996 nearly 40,000 Americans died of AIDS, compared with 50,000 the year before.

Ken Tomory, vice president of the Clark County Coalition of HIV and AIDs Service Providers, said the main reason fewer people are dying of AIDS is because new, powerful drugs, such as protease inhibitors, are keeping patients alive longer.

"What's happening with the new drugs is the life span is lengthening, but the infection rate is not really decreasing," Tomory said. "People are living longer, but the disease is not going away. There is no cure in sight."

Velardo said while it's wonderful that people with AIDS are living longer because of new drugs, it's still a shame that anyone gets infected because AIDS is a preventable disease.

"People don't talk about it as much as they used to," Velardo said. "They don't want to hear about it. And it's very dangerous to have such an apathetic attitude toward something so terrible."

In Clark County, according to local officials, 2,652 people have been diagnosed with AIDS, and just more than half of them -- 1,338 -- have died.

The United Nations reports that through 1996, 21.8 million men, women and children throughout the world got the AIDs virus, and if current trends continue, nearly 70 million people will be infected with it by the year 2,000.

Moreover, since the beginning of the global epidemic, more than 9 million children under age 15 have lost their mothers to the AIDS virus.

Velardo said her brother, if he were alive, would be greatly saddened to hear those numbers.

"Back in 1987, Brent participated on a nationally televised panel discussion, and he stressed that AIDS is preventable, and it's much too terrible a thing to allow to happen to anyone," she said.