5,000 walkers turn out to raise $150,000 in annual AIDS event

Thanks to about 5,000 eager walkers who strode around Stanley Park in
the 12th Annual AIDS Walk Sunday, Tom McAulay can afford to eat.

``I rely mostly on my friends and on the food vouchers I get from
volunteering at the [B.C. Persons with AIDS Society] to feed myself,
because I do not have enough money to buy food,'' said McAulay,
vicechair of the society.

McAulay, diagnosed with AIDS in 1989, is just one of many people in
Vancouver who will benefit from the estimated $150,000 raised in
Sunday's 12th Annual AIDS Walk.

The event kicked off at Ceperly Meadows, across from Ceperly Park, at
11 a.m. The turnout matched last year's numbers, but fell short of
1995's 9,000 walkers.

Sixtyfive communities from coast to coast held walks. The largest
turnout was in Montreal, where 18,000 participants raised $600,000. In
total $3 million was raised across Canada by about 60,000
participants.

Eighty per cent of the proceeds raised in the Vancouver walk will go
to the B.C. Persons with AIDS Society's Complementary Health Fund,
which provides eligible members $100 per month to supplement their
health needs. For McAulay, that means vitamins, chiropractic sessions,
fitness programs and bottled water. (Two years ago, McAulay contracted
giardia from tap water).

``If I didn't have access to that money, I just couldn't do,'' said
McAulay.

There has been an ``explosion of the epidemic in the Downtown
Eastside,'' McAulay said, and as a result his society's membership has
increased by over 1,000 in the past year.

In B.C., approximately 10,100 people have been diagnosed as
HIVpositive, and 2,400 infected with AIDS. Close to 1,900 deaths have
resulted.

``There is a human tragedy in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver that
we have got to deal with,'' agreed BurnabyDouglas MP Svend Robinson
(NDP), one of the many who braved the rain to walk the twokilometre
or 10kilometre routes.

``People are dying in devastating numbers and we have got to pay
attention to the words of chief coroner Vince Cain and recognize that
fundamentally this is not a criminal law problem. This is a health
problem.''

Last week the Vancouver/Richmond health board declared a public health
emergency due to the soaring AIDS rate in the Downtown Eastside.

Intravenousdrug users who share used needles have contributed to the
alarming increase in infections.

Medical health officer Dr. John Blatherwick said last week he would
support a proposal for safe houses for drug addicts to help combat the
epidemic, but Health Minister Joy MacPhail said she would not
entertain such a proposal.