Brazil’s own unique response was what has made it so successful in combating AIDS. A woman’s story changed entirely her country’s future in changing the effects of the AIDS epidemic. In 1991, both South Africa and Brazil were seen as huge risks for the future: both nations had rates of AIDS a little bit over 1 percent of population. By the end of the next decade Brazil remained at 1 percent and South Africa went up to 25 percent.
While Brazil had built clinics in poor neighborhoods, it claimed it could not afford to provide their patients with antiretroviral drugs, especially the new triple cocktail created by Dr. David Ho. Nair Brito, a schoolteacher in Rio, had been infected with HIV by a boyfriend and knew that she was slowly dying from this disease. While at the hospital, fighting for her last days, Brito decided to sue the government for the drugs since it was stated in the constitution of 1988 that every citizen was entitled to health care. She won not only for herself but for the 83 percent of Brazilians that need antiretrovirals and receive them.The government then produced a national health care program, the Sistema Unico de Saude which began looking for drugs to provide to all of its patients. This system was to provide care, prevention, counseling, and treatment for those in need. The country however, was already in a developing state and could not afford to keep paying the asked prices for these drugs.
Brazilian laboratories began creating generic AIDS drugs that would alleviate a lot of the cost. The nation negotiated lower prices for the patents for the triple cocktail and kept producing the drugs needed for its citizens. While there is great spending, with unhealthy citizens, the Ministry of Health estimates that the costs even out.
Yet, the drugs were not the only things needed for Brazil to advance in its AIDS program, but prevention was the tool to the future. Drugs were going to weaken the virus in the patients currently infected and thus limit the chances of the virus spreading, but it was still necessary to promote safe sex. So, Brazil launched an advertising campaign that has been running for over a decade since the 1990s.
"Make the condom come out of the closet"
"Get in the know"While there seems to be a hint of controversy with the Church, the Ministry of Health has declared that it has set its priorities, and that all of the lifestyles that the Church does not agree with such as the use of condoms, prostitution and homosexuality, are something that they will have to deal with as the government does its job to protect its citizens.
