The new face of death; virtually unknown to the best minds of medicine.

In the first year of the pandemic only five persons died because of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, AIDS. Today the numbers run into the millions and it just keeps growing.

"In the beginning I don't think anyone knew how to respond,'' Sister Zita Fleming recounts, her voice tapering to a whisper.

"Even in the medical community they didn't know what to call it. What happened; how did this human virus -- a preventable disease -- turn into a global epidemic.'' For the Boston-based Director of Seaton House and Catholic Sister of St.

Joseph's order, the search for answers began in a dark and dreary basement of a Protestant church.

From there she trained as volunteer for AIDS Action Boston and, by 1990, had opened the State's first hospice for victims of AIDS. Earlier this week brought her story to the parents and students of Mount St. Agnes Academy. No life has been untouched -- spiritually or physically -- since AIDS broke broke into the open, says Sister Fleming, who quietly recalls tales of friends won and lost on the AIDS frontlines.

Most telling is the reaction of the wider community's first response as AIDS swept through the gay community: "We have to ask ourselves `where were we during that time.' Did we just sit back and say so what. Today, hopefully, our response would be different.'' It has to be. In the 1990's AIDS is the fastest growing cause of death among teenagers and women, she says.

"This about you and me; AIDS is everywhere. There is no cure so we have to figure out how we're going to stop it.

"And there is one piece of good news. You have the power within you so you never get AIDS.'' Says Sister Fleming, it's not a question of condoms in schools, or abstinence, or not. It's simply a question of the decisions we make. "Young people are hearing in their homes that AIDS doesn't happen to people like us; still. We have to stop talking down to our kids because this is real.'' SISTER ZITA FLEMING -- "There is no cure so we have to figure out how we're going to stop it.'' AIDS AID