Brazil Bucks AIDS Trend, But Blacks Are Hard-Hit

On Wednesday, Brazil's government reported that new AIDS cases in the country fell from 33,904 in 2003 to 30,886 last year. Brazil's HIV prevalence rate dropped from 19.2 cases per 100,000 people in 2003 to 17.2 per 100,000 in 2004.

However, the percentage of AIDS cases occurring among those who self-identified as black or brown rose from 33.4 percent to 37.2 percent for men and from 35.6 percent to 42.4 percent for women.

Declaring that racism is "an additional factor making people vulnerable," AIDS chief Pedro Chequer said, "When a poor white and a poor black go into the public-health system, the poor white gets treated better." The health ministry is set to launch an "AIDS Is Racism" campaign to encourage blacks to seek information on the disease.

Brazil is home to 185 million people, and 47 percent are black. Half the black population lives in poverty. The government reports blacks are twice as likely as whites to be poor and receive less education, and they are more likely to die younger. A government study found blacks are almost twice as likely as whites not to know how HIV is spread or how to protect themselves.

In the 1990s, forecasts said AIDS would devastate Brazil's young, sexually active population. But its free universal drug access program, begun in 1997, has been hailed by the UN as a model for the developing world, and its condom distribution and free syringe efforts have also helped cut transmission. Chequer said the country would buy a record one billion condoms in 2006 and start producing them at what he believes will be the world's first state-run condom factory.

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