Prevention to Be Stressed During Carnival : Brazil Readies Drive on AIDS

Worried about the rapid spread of AIDS in Brazil, the government is starting a preventive campaign to coincide with the annual carnival season, a time of increased sexual promiscuity here.

Carnival starts next Saturday and continues until the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday. In Rio and many other Brazilian cities, it is a four-day frenzy of costume parades, gala balls, spontaneous street parties and rampant frivolity. The earthy beat of the samba and the liberal flow of cachaca , a popular sugar cane liquor, contribute to the bacchanalian atmosphere.

Brazilian officials fear that the uninhibited partying could contribute to the spread of AIDS, acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Time of ‘Facility’

“We believe that during the carnival period the disease can spread because of the facility of sexual relations at this time,” said Lair Rodrigues, a Health Ministry official in Brasilia, the capital.

Rodrigues heads the ministry’s National Program of AIDS Prevention and Control. Her office has supervised preparation of a television and newspaper campaign that will begin Tuesday, warning of the danger of AIDS and urging potential victims to take precautions.

“Carnival creates conditions for switching sex partners,” Rodrigues said in a telephone interview. “Studies have shown that the incidence of other sexually transmitted diseases increases after carnival, which leads us to suppose that the same happens with AIDS. . . .

“I don’t know if you have seen carnival in Brazil. It is total craziness.”

Fear of Foreigners

An additional fear is that foreigners infected with AIDS will come for carnival and add to the disease’s propagation. Carnival is believed to attract large numbers of homosexuals from the United States and other countries, and so far, AIDS has spread more widely among homosexual communities than among the heterosexual population.

“That’s what people say, but I have no idea how many homosexuals are coming,” Rodrigues said.

The Brazilian news magazine Veja said that at least 400,000 foreign visitors are expected for carnival this year. Those arriving at Rio’s international airport are likely to receive Health Ministry leaflets recommending that tourists abstain from casual sex or that they use condoms.

The leaflets are being printed in Portuguese, Spanish, English and French.

Rodrigues’ unit in the Health Ministry is preparing to publish newspaper and magazine advertisements and broadcast television spots starting Tuesday. The spots are to be aired only after 11 p.m.

‘Be Careful’

“Brazil is facing one of our century’s most serious diseases, AIDS,” says the narrator of one TV spot, which shows the somber interior of a hospital. “The only thing that you can do to not get AIDS is be careful. . . . “

The advertisement’s recommendations include the use of “Venus shirts,” as condoms are called here, and throwaway hypodermic needles. The re-use of needles by drug addicts has been identified as one way in which the disease is spread.

Plans for the campaign have created controversy. Some conservative church leaders have argued that instead of recommending the use of condoms, the campaign should discourage promiscuity and homosexuality.

Rodrigues said the campaign was originally planned to last three months and include radio messages. But she said a reduction in the campaign budget by nearly three-quarters made it necessary to reduce the period to three weeks and to eliminate radio spots.

WHO Funds Sought

Applications for more funds are being made to the World Health Organization and the World Bank.

The World Health Organization’s latest list of countries reporting the most AIDS cases puts Brazil third behind the United States and France.

More than 1,200 cases of AIDS and 600 deaths from the disease have been reported in Brazil. Officials say the numbers would be considerably higher if all AIDS cases were reported.

About three-quarters of Brazil’s reported AIDS cases have been in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the country’s two biggest cities, where many residents are open about their homosexuality.

Roberto Badaro, a professor of immunology at the Federal University of Bahia, said that 23 AIDS cases have been reported in his state but that he knows of 20 additional cases that have gone unreported because of the stigma attached to AIDS.

Festival Plans Continue

Despite fears of AIDS contagion during carnival, plans for the celebration are as elaborate as ever. Samba clubs in Rio and other cities are putting the finishing touches on their costumes and floats and practicing the songs they will sing in the lavish “fantasies.”

One club, Siri na Lata in the northeastern city of Recife, has adopted as its theme “Carnival without AIDS.”

At a gathering spot for homosexual sunbathers on Rio’s Ipanema Beach, a young man who gave his name as Victor Manuel predicted that AIDS will even be a theme of humorous fantasies by informal gay groups during carnival.

“You will see people made up like AIDS victims,” he said. “Everyone jokes around. It is better to joke, because AIDS is very sad.”

He said there will be less casual sex among homosexuals during carnival this year.

“Before, it was like Sodom and Gomorrah,” he said. “Now AIDS makes people think twice. They are trembling.”

Another young man, who gave his name as Fabricio Silveira, agreed.

“Everyone is worried,” he said. “Carnival here is synonymous with sex. But carnival this year won’t be as crazy, as wild, as good as it was before.”