The run-up to Brazil’s annual carnival, which gets underway this weekend, has been marked by a government publicity campaign promoting safe sex.

Television advertisements have focused on young women, encouraging them to demand that their male sexual partners use a condom. Almost twenty million free condoms will be distributed nationwide during the five days of festivities, and revellers will also receive around 100,000 bandanas bearing a safe-sex message.

Brazil’s health minister, José Gomes Temporão, said that his ministry has a responsibility to ‘call people’s attention to the importance of prevention’.

The Brazilian approach to HIV/AIDS, cited by the World Health Organization as a model for developing countries, has certainly achieved positive results. Infection rates are significantly lower than in the 1990s, and have now stabilised at a level which, according to the Harvard School of Public Health, is similar to that in the United States.

Brazil was the first developing country to commit to providing free anti-retroviral medicines to people with HIV, and the government has also negotiated with major pharmaceutical companies in order to bring down the price of AIDS drugs.

Out of a total population of 185 million, there are currently around 200,000 people being treated for AIDS and a further 600,000 with the HIV virus.

Brazil moving closer to curbing AIDS – officials (Reuters, 21/11/07)

Brazil's Aids policy 'remarkable' (BBC - 14/11/2007)

Source: Embassy of Brazil in London