by Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

IQALUIT (Mar 09/98) - Leetia Geetah, the first Inuk to be diagnosed with AIDS, was just 24 when she contracted the deadly illness.

Living in Iqaluit, Geetah, who was also pregnant at the time, had contracted meningitis. Related tests found she was HIV-positive and though she died of AIDS in 1992, her message continues to be heard today.

Geetah hung on for four years, enduring threats and ending up virtually locked in the Baffin Regional Hospital before moving to Ottawa.

"There was enormous fear in the community," remembers Todd Armstrong, the man who is raising Geetah's 10-year-old son, Audla. "But as awareness grows, people are less afraid to talk about it."

Armstrong says Geetah, who drifted in and out of drug treatment centres, knew first-hand that its easy to forget about taking same-sex precautions when high or drunk.

"It's not just a southern disease," says Armstrong, a community health counsellor, a teacher and the former executive director of an AIDS residence in Toronto. "The virus doesn't have a brain. It can't tell whether they are Inuk or not."

Says Armstrong: "We know the potential is there -- the high numbers of STDs, teenage pregnancies -- these are all indicators the same behaviors that can lead to AIDS are there."

He says Geetah is lucky Audla did not contract HIV and that education is vital to ensure people realize the risks.

"Only about 30 per cent of the babies born from HIV-positive women are affected. Now with the use of AZT during pregnancy that number is being reduced. But still it's serious.

Iqaluit health-promotion officer Markus Wilck says once a properly thought-out plan is in place, money invested in AIDS education will be well spent because the disease is "100 per cent preventable and 100 per cent not curable."

One technique that seems to be working in Iqaluit is the placement of an information package in taxi cabs. Condoms are also usually either available in a taxi's back seat or from the driver.

"Taxi drivers have become a real part of the process," Armstrong says.