Brazil to Help Countries Combat AIDS

Paulo Teixeira, coordinator of Brazil's AIDS program, said Tuesday that his nation would embark on a million-dollar program to help poorer countries fight the epidemic. He denied reports, however, that Brazil would begin exporting its cheap generic versions of AIDS drugs. "It is not Brazil's mission to become an exporter," he said, adding that it does not have the capacity to produce the drugs on a large scale. Instead, he said Brazil would focus on providing technical know-how to other countries and sponsoring small pilot programs. Teixeira made his remarks upon returning from the 14th International AIDS Conference, where Brazil's program was praised as one of the few successes in the AIDS fight. The key to that success has been the government's policy of distributing combination drug therapy to anyone who needs it. Thanks largely to the drug handout, annual AIDS deaths in Brazil have fallen from 11,024 to 4,136 in just four years.

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