Activists want Brazil government to drop proposed new AIDS funding rule

Javier Hourcade Bellocq – Global Fund Observer/Aidspan, 11/05/2012

Brazilian activists have sounded an alarm over a plan by the government to introduce a new law that will have a negative impact on funding for HIV programmes. The activists said in a statement released on 26 October 2012 that the Ministry of Health is about to publish a decree that will allow states and municipalities to reallocate funding that was originally earmarked exclusively for HIV programmes but that was unspent either because of inefficiency or lack of commitment.

The activists said that to worsen matters, the Brazilian government has also issued a new decree stating that its so-called “incentives policy,” which earmarks amounts of the general health budget to specific programmes, will be terminated in 2013.

“If approved, this new rule will mean the final blow to the Brazilian AIDS policy, as we have known it,” the statement from activists said.

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Brazil HIV/Aids strategy needs new focus, campaigners say

Julia Dias Carneiro – BBC Brasilia, 07/26/2012

Mara Moreira lives in a country where the policy for combating Aids has won international acclaim. But 18 years after she was diagnosed as HIV positive, she is deeply worried.

Mrs Moreira, 36, believes Brazil has lost its way in the struggle against Aids and that the current strategy is flawed.

“We are facing a crisis,” she says. “Because of the false idea that the epidemic is under control and that all is well.”

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Activists fear Brazil’s triumph over HIV Has fizzled

Jason Beaubien – NPR, 07/20/2012

Brazil’s HIV/AIDS program — which has been praised as a model for developing nations — is now under strain.

When HIV first emerged in the 1980s, Brazil responded quickly to the epidemic. The South American country launched large-scale safe-sex drives and gave away millions of condoms. It offered free treatment to anyone who was infected. The Brazilian government took on international pharmaceutical companies and even broke patents to cut medication costs.

But as the epidemic drags on, HIV continues to spread in Brazil, and AIDS activists say what was once a highly touted response to HIV is now in decline.

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HIV prevention drug Truvada no quick fix for Brazil’s epidemic

Jason Beaubien – NPR, 06/17/2012

Yesterday the Food and Drug Administration gave the first green light on a drug to prevent HIV transmission.

Many experts say the drug will help hasten the end of the AIDS pandemic. But experts in Brazil say the drug alone isn’t the answer.

One of the drug trials the FDA considered was done at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation Research Institute, also known as Fiocruz, in Rio de Janeiro.

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Brazil launches campaign to decriminalise drug use

Fabiana Frayssinet - Inter Press Service, 07/12/2012

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 12 2012 (IPS) – A host of academic, legal, health, political and social figures are joining together to back a campaign to decriminalise drug use in Brazil, as tens of thousands of consumers uninvolved in the drug trade are currently jailed.

The “Drug Law: It’s Time to Change” campaign is an initiative launched by the Brazilian Commission on Drugs and Democracy, which aims to gather one million signatures in support of a bill that will be introduced in congress during the second half of 2013.

Many movie and television celebrities, along with major political personalities, including former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2003), have rallied behind this campaign that seeks to amend the country’s anti-drug policy act (Law 11,343/2006), which makes no distinction between users and dealers.

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Brazil to Breed Genetically Modified Mosquitoes to Fight Dengue

EFE/Fox News Latino, 07/08/2012

Brasilia –  The goal sounds easier than it is: Breed genetically modified mosquitoes that would actually cut down mosquito populations.

Brazilian authorities inaugurated Saturday a breeder for a genetically modified type of aedes aegypti mosquito in hopes of finding a more effective way to combat dengue, of which 431,194 cases have been registered this year nationwide.

The so-called “mosquito factory” was built at a cost of 1.7 million reais ($850,000) and financed by the government of Bahia state with the help of the Health Ministry.

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BASF says Brazil court suspends damages ruling

Reuters, 07/03/2012

(Reuters) – Chemicals maker BASF said a Brazilian court suspended a ruling for BASF and oil major Shell to pay 1.06 billion Brazilian reals ($525.23 million) into a compensation fund for former employees at a pesticides plant.

Brazil’s highest labour court put the verdict from a lower court on hold after BASF and Shell lodged an appeal, Germany’s BASF said in a statement late on Wednesday.

The workers claim their health had suffered or remains at risk of suffering from having worked at the Paulinia pesticides plant.

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Brazil’s AIDS success story faces uncertain new chapter

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.

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Brazil claims successful test of parasite vaccine

AFP, 06/13/2012

BRASILIA — Brazilian researchers say they have successfully tested a vaccine against schistosomiasis, a disease caused by parasitic worms that afflicts more than 200 million people worldwide.

“This is an unprecedented breakthrough in medicine that involved 30 years of scientific work,” Dr Tania Araujo-Jorge, of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute in Rio de Janeiro, said Tuesday. The institute receives public and private funding.

“We are confident that within three years Brazil will be able to distribute the first vaccine against parasites, and help combat schistosomiasis, a disease that strikes the poorest because it is spread by unsanitary conditions.”

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Brazil calls for more efforts for comprehensive education to prevent HIV/AIDS

The Global Times, 06/12/2012

Brazil on Monday called for more comprehensive education on how to prevent HIV/AIDS, saying that discrimination, limited access to health services and lack of specific HIV-prevention policies contribute to making key affected populations disproportionately vulnerable to the infection.

The statement came as Regina Maria Cordeiro Dunlop, the deputy Brazilian permanent representative to the United Nations, made the statement as he was speaking at a plenary session of the UN General Assembly on HIV/AIDS.

“Comprehensive education on sexuality must be made available together with the expansion of access to essential preventive commodities, particularly male and female condoms,” she said.

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