Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2003 | 11 a.m.
About 100 Las Vegans lifted candles in the darkness at Christ the King Catholic Community on Monday night, celebrating patients, doctors, nurses and counselors battling AIDS.
People from all faiths came together at the church on Torrey Pines Drive and Tropicana Avenue in Southern Nevada's sixth interfaith candlelight vigil on World AIDS Day. Hundreds of others across the Las Vegas Valley marched, sang and spoke about the epidemic that is spreading rapidly through Africa and Asia.
"It's celebrating people who are living productive lives, celebrating those that have gone on and those who care for AIDS patients," said Pat Manning, a member of First Congregational United Church of Christ who has organized the vigil since its inception.
Kay Bjornson, a nurse who worked in the Clark County Health District's AIDS clinic for 13 years, was one of those remembered. Over the summer she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died a month later on July 24, her friend and co-worker Cynthia Guiterrez Mota said.
Mota unveiled a plaque in Bjornson's honor during the hourlong vigil.
The Rev. Lionel Starkes of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, who counsels AIDS patients at the Health District and knew Bjornson, said that the nurse "was obsessed" to give patients better care.
"The work is often tiring, the work is often tearful, but Kay persisted," Starkes said.
Jim Beggs, who has worked on the vigil every year with Manning, said, "You have to be very respectful of people who do this work in AIDS. You can't be gloom and doom."
There have been 4,120 AIDS patients identified in Clark County since 1981, Clark County Health District spokeswoman Jennifer Sizemore said.
The health district's HIV/AIDS officials said the number of cases has risen slowly over the years, but that doesn't take into account the area's population growth, Sizemore said.
Nevada has not experienced the rapid increases in AIDS and HIV infections that larger cities such as New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco have had, state epidemiologist Dr. Randall Todd said.
When he learned of the recent increases in AIDS cases in Southern Nevada, however, Todd said, "That's disturbing. No one likes to see an increase, no matter how slight."
Health officials have not determined what is behind the increase, Sizemore said.
In the 1980s cases doubled every year from 1985 until 1990, Dr. Jerry Cade said, starting with 15 cases in 1985. In the 1990s cases have increased on average by 200 patients each year in Clark County.
During the 1990s scientists developed a chemical "cocktail" given to HIV-infected people and AIDS patients that keeps them alive, Dr. Jerry Cade said.
Cade has treated AIDS patients since the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the first five gay men who had developed immune-compromising diseases in Los Angeles on June 5, 1981.
"It has been my privilege for the past 18 years to take care of AIDS patients," Cade said.
Since 1981 there have been 900,000 AIDS cases reported in the United States, and 500,000 people have died of AIDS.
The toll has been much greater in sub-Saharan Africa, Cade said. In 2003 alone 680,000 children have been affected by AIDS, he said.
The World Health Organization is estimating that by 2010 there will be 20 million orphans in Africa, their entire immediate and extended families wiped out by AIDS, Cade said.
AIDS among infants in the United States has become a disease of the past, because pre-natal treatment prevents babies from becoming infected, Cade said.
His first patient, a 32-year-old Las Vegas entertainer, lost 30 pounds in six months as the disease progressed. Cade said he treated his first patient in August 1985.
"I had never seen AIDS up to this point in time," Cade said.
"Like no other modern tragedy, AIDS has defined our brother's keeper," Cade said.
As the Rev. David Gillentine of the Metropolitan Community Church lit the first candle for the vigil, he recalled the progress the medical community has made treating AIDS.
"In the early '80s there was no light at the end of the tunnel," Gillentine said. "Today, thank God, there is hope."
Father Joseph O'Brien, director of the Saint Therese Center, which does outreach work among AIDS victims with the support of Catholic Charities, said that he was proud of the gathering that brought the Congregation Ner Tamid teen and adult choirs, Praise Dancers of Victory Missionary Baptist Church and the Community Lutheran Church Handbell Choir together under one roof.
"Let us bring our holy ground to this time and this place and make it our common ground," O'Brien said.
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