teenagers.

And experts fear the next shocking AIDS statistic will be among the teenage population of the Island.

Teenagers know about the dangers of HIV virus but are still having unprotected sex according, to Public Health Charge Nurse Ms Gaylia Landry.

Ms Landry, and Nurse Epidemiologist Ms Rhonda Daniels, were talking, last night, as the AME Churches of Bermuda presented an open discussion on AIDS to a disappointingly small audience at St. Paul Centennial Hall.

She said: "Bermuda is similar to the United States where high percentages of teenagers are infected by the virus.'' Some idea can be gauged by the rate of sexually transmitted diseases among teenagers, Ms Landry said: "If the STD rate is high you are probably going to see teenagers with the HIV virus.

"Teenagers are having sex, and that's the bottom line.

And teenagers are having unprotected sex. Teaching should begin in the home.

We cannot just sit around and not do anything about it for five years.'' President of the A.M.E. Ministers' Alliance the Rev. Trevor Woolridge MP told the audience of around 20 people that the meeting had been called to educate people about AIDS and HIV and not to become involved in arguments about homosexuality.

Rev. Woolridge said: "I regret that a few more people are not here, but if one person become sensitive to HIV and AIDS then this meeting will have been worth it.

"My personal concern is that as a Christian I must do much more than admonish people from the pulpit. If I am going to be sensitive and helpful to anyone with AIDS then I need to know the facts.'' Ms Daniels gave a brief history of AIDS which was found in homosexual communities in the United States in the early 1980s.

But over the years it was found among injection drug users, heterosexuals and children. It can affect almost anyone.

In December the World Health Organisation announced figures of 851,628 cases of AIDS worldwide. The WHO estimates 40 million people will have been infected by HIV by the year 2000, and 2.8 million adults and 900,000 children will have full blown AIDS.

In Bermuda there have been 247 cases of AIDS diagnosed, of which 211 people have died. Those diagnosed range in age from 20 to over 60, with one small child.

There have been no reported cases of teenage AIDS, but Ms Landry stressed they will come unless teenagers take precautions.

Ms Daniels stressed that despite six cases of AIDS infections being picked up during blood transfusion all the infections were before 1985 and a test now ensures the virus is not present in blood samples.

She said estimates have been made that every person with AIDS could have infected at least five or ten people. That means an estimated 2,000 people infected on the Island, although Bermuda is one of the best countries for reporting AIDS.

Going on to the work of the Health Department, Ms Daniels said AIDS counselling involves telling people to abstain from sex or practice safer sex.

She said: "We like to call it sexual outercourse, which means getting sexual pleasure without coming into contact with body fluids.'' People with AIDS must inform doctors, dentists and sexual partners that they are infected by the virus, and the health department tries to confidentially contact partners as part of the counselling.

Ms Daniels said: "We do not force people to be tested but if they do not we tell them the same things as anyone with AIDS or HIV, practice abstinence or safer sex.'' Drugs users are warned to use clean needles in case they spread the infection.