Paige Minemeyer – The Miami Herald, 06/12/2012
RIO DE JANEIRO — In the 10 years that Dr. Anna Cabral has been treating AIDS patients, she said, she’s seen a change in the people who come to her clinic in a large public hospital.
Where once a diagnosis would fill them with terror, said Cabral, a teaching doctor at Pedro Ernesto University Hospital in Rio de Janeiro, today they have hope.
An AIDS diagnosis is no longer a death sentence in Rio de Janeiro, as the variety and quality of treatments continue to improve, thanks largely to a national treatment and prevention program that calls for near-universal distribution of medication. But the controversial program – the government broke international patent laws to mass-produce the drugs at a lower cost and recruited sex workers to help distribute condoms – may not survive for long, experts say.
