Univ. Helps Brazil Slow AIDS Rates

A group of experts from Harvard schools highlighted the University’s help in preventing the spread of AIDS in Brazil at a conference about the disease in the Center for Government and International Studies yesterday.

The conference, organized in part by a Harvard undergraduate, presented Brazil as a generally good model for countries affected by AIDS.

During the early 1990s the World Bank projected that 1.2 million Brazilians would be infected with HIV by 2000. But in 2005 it was estimated that only 600,000 had been infected, according to Professor of Medicine John R. David.

“Brazil might have become like South Africa, but instead Brazil has had very positive results compared to the projected statistics,” Rockefeller Center Director of Brazil Studies Kenneth Maxwell said.

One panel at the conference, coordinated by David A. Martin ’07 and Erin E. Goodman, the Brazil program officer at the Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, was devoted to a discussion of Harvard’s role in mitigating the epidemic.

In addition to academic studies which have provided insight into the problem, David described several trips to Brazil where he helped to distribute over a million free condoms.

David said when he visited Carnival in Brazil in 1996 to distribute 200,000 condoms people treated them “as if [we] were distributing ten dollar bills.”

Maxwell said that condom distribution had been key in limiting the spread of the disease.

“Harvard has really made a difference in the lives of real people,” David said.

Martin, a History and Science concentrator, said that he decided to organize the conference because he wanted to see his thesis come to life.

Maxwell said that the conference was a unique opportunity for experts to collaborate.

“We discovered that there was this tremendous concentration of people at Harvard working on HIV and AIDS in Brazil. A lot of these people haven’t communicated with each other before,” he said.

Assistant Professor of Medicine Joia Mukherjee emphasized the role of the Brazilian government, and specifically the universal healthcare and free antiretroviral drugs it provides.

“Brazil was twenty years ahead of where most places are today,” she said.

Paulo R. Teixeira, former director of the national STD/AIDS program of the Brazilian Ministry of Health, said that although the government was pleased with the low rate of infection, it recognized the price tag that comes with increased life expectancy of those using antiretrovirals.

“We need to take some strategic and political decisions as a way to reduce the financial charges [of ARV drugs]. These measures will depend on the Brazilian mobilizations and the international community,” he said.