“I declare officially open this wonderful, fantastic Carnaval of Rio de Janeiro,” King Momo said, holding a giant golden key in his hands, which had been given him by Mayor Eduardo Paes.

The symbolic ceremony of handing over the keys to the city has been held since 1933.

King Momo, played for the third straight year by Milton Rodrigues Junior, kicked off this year’s festivities at city hall, where he was received by the mayor in a folkloric act.

With the festivities officially open and in the midst of music and dance, the king showed off his talent for doing the samba, as did the mayor and Carnaval Queen Bianca Ferreira and her two princesses.

“It is a great responsibility to hold the keys to the city. It is the third consecutive year of my reign and it is a great pleasure to enjoy this city’s golden moment,” King Momo said, before inviting everyone to celebrate Carnaval in peace and happiness.

For his part, Mayor Paes, wearing a typical festive garland, humorously congratulated himself on passing the city’s power to the sovereign, and invited one and all to take delight in the festivities with joy and respect.

King Momo, chosen in a popular contest, must always be a fat, smiley man, a good samba dancer, able to instill crowds with the Carnaval spirit and spur them to non-stop partying and dancing.

In related news Brazil’s health ministry is handing out 89 million free condoms during the celebrations. The number is 26 million more condoms than were given out last year.

Local news outlets are reporting the reason for this year’s jump in condom distribution is the alarming spread of the AIDS virus amongst youth in Brazil, where an estimated 630,000 Brazilians are infected.

Brazil’s health minister asked that Brazilians and the 575,000 foreign visitors expected to visit Rio de Janeiro make good use of the free condoms during Carnaval, which has a reputation for an atmosphere of casual sex.

In the first two days of Carnaval 95 people were killed in accidents only in the country’s federal highways in a total of 1,046 accidents and 555 injured.

Mercopress

The first night of parades lasted from Sunday into early Monday morning with Brazilian celebrities and slum dwellers dancing side by side and with the presence of President Lula da Silva the first president in some fifteen years to attend the Rio parades.

Taking place over two nights, the parades feature the top 12 samba schools competing in front of 80,000 spectators at the Sambadrome stadium. The winning school, which is announced on Wednesday, receives no prize but earns bragging rights and massive attention from the local news media.

The reigning champion, Beija-Flor, paraded early Monday with an elaborate presentation on the history of mankind's relationship with water and bathing. The school used 7,000 liters of water on its floats, in the form of waterfalls, fountains and a pyramid that mid-parade was transformed into a beach. Beija-Flor has won five of the last six titles.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, dressed in a white shirt and Panama hat, stayed until early dawn, five in the morning and was accompanied by his wife Marisa, the governor of the state of Rio do Janeiro, the mayor of the city and other ministers and authorities.

"Marvelous," said Lula when asked about the parade. However he also had messages: "No excess drinking; drink responsibly, drink socially and don't drive; please enjoy yourselves but with no violence or knocked-out for driving."

Later the Brazilian president also took the anti-AIDS campaign into his own hands when he began tossing out condoms to Carnaval revelers early Monday.

A presidential spokesman says Lula wanted to show the importance of Brazil's campaign to prevent the spread of AIDS. Brazil is handing out 65 million free condoms this month; that's up from the usual 45 million.

Brazil is buying 1.2 billion condoms this year for its program, making it the world's biggest government buyer of prophylactics. The spokesman talked on condition of anonymity.

Mercopress

The minister made a point to stress that the whole health network in Brazil had been instructed to hand out condoms to anyone who asks for them.

NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) in recent days had complained that there were not enough condoms to go on and that there were cases like in Salvador, capital of Bahia state, where homosexuals had been barred from getting the male contraceptives.

"We have distributed 20 million condoms for Carnaval. We will distribute 600 million male contraceptives this year. We made a purchase of 1 billion condoms, which is going to insure that people can access the product regularly. The government vouches for the distribution," said Temporão.

"The condoms are already in the states and capitals. Yesterday I talked to Salvador's Health secretary. And everybody should rest assured that the condoms will be made available not only during Carnaval, but throughout the whole year," the minister added.

Temporão once again regretted the position taken by the Catholic Archdiocese of Recife and Olinda, which went to court to try to prevent the distribution of the morning-after pill in the state of Pernambuco. The Catholic Church lost its case.

"The morning-after pill is an emergency medication to be used only in cases of extreme necessity. But science has already shown that this is not an abortive pill. The morning-after pill prevents fecundation and I believe women have the right to get this medication," the minister insisted.

The Health minister said that he considered the Catholic Church's stand inadequate, but he recognized that the polemic was absolutely understandable as an issue of public health.

The president was participating in a event taking place in Cidade do Samba (Samba City). The Brazilian government plans to double the number of AIDS tests and increase to 6 million, by 2008, the number of female condoms distributed for free.

The president commented that themes like early-age sex and the use of condom are rarely discussed due to pressure from the Church, the parents or for pure prejudice.

"Let's fight hypocrisy in the country," Lula told his audience. "Contraceptive has to be distributed for free and people have to be taught how to use it. Sex has to be made and people have to be taught how to make it. That's the only way we can have a country free from AIDS."

According to Lula, precocious maternity is the reason why about 30% of Brazilian girls between the ages of 15 and 17 are not going to school.

"When we approach these subjects with a certain hypocrisy and when we are not brave enough to discuss the themes the way they are, the result we reap is precocious pregnancy, is violence among young people, because we didn't care enough to teach," the president said adding:

"You can't just stamp on a teen's forehead when it is time to start making sex. Sex is something that almost everybody likes and it is an organic need, it is a need for the human species and for the animal species. Therefore, since we don't have control over this, what we need to do is to educate, at the right time, while they are still children."

This is a simplistic attempt at a solution. The two problems stem from much more complex national and global facts. In the past few decades there has been a lessening of sexual prejudices and a consequent reduction in the age of sexual initiation.

Brazil has become even more radicalized. The two problems are the natural consequence and must be faced immediately, but this must be done correctly with neither simplification nor illusions. The solution is not the mechanical ease of machines that distribute condoms.

The solution is sex education for children and adolescents and the education of their parents.

As a first condition, Brazilian children must stay in school until the age of 18. If the children leave school before age 14, as is happening in Brazil, there is no opportunity for sex education.

If, like millions of children throughout Brazil, they never enter school, they will not have the opportunity for sex education. They must stay in school. Only with a serious bolsa-escola program, a school savings program and quality schools will it be possible for children to remain in school until their high school graduation.

Today, many children are enrolled in school but do not attend. They go merely for the snack served. Now, they will go to receive condoms.

As a second condition, specific sex-education courses must be given in the public and private schools.

With those courses, the children will know how to use their own sexuality. They will have the resources to buy their own condoms or will be able to obtain them in the government health centers (SUS), or with their friends, aunts and uncles and parents.

Without full consciousness of their sexuality, its pleasures and risks, Brazilian students will derive small or no benefit from the new little machines that dispense condoms. The dispensers may have the opposite effect, serving as an incentive for sex instead of an incentive for safe sax.

The mechanical distribution does not have that educational dimension. It even causes a reduction in the age of sexual initiation. What’s worse, some children may play with the condoms like balloons.

Besides providing education for students, the government and society need to understand that there is a climate in Brazilian cultural life, especially on television, that serves as an incentive to precocious eroticism.

Given this situation, the distribution of condoms is a "jeitinho," a Brazilian shortcut avoiding the fundamental causes of the problem. It employs the old logic of the superficial and even irresponsible quick fix.

It is a way of transferring to the children and adolescents themselves responsibility for the solution to the problems that we, the Brazilian society, have created: education set aside; children out of school; eroticism induced from early childhood.

Children and young people should take care when climbing on benches, should learn by themselves to use the little machines and should remember to use condoms. As if it were their problem alone and not one involving all of us, Brazil and the government.

It is sad that these are not the only little machines offered to solve the great national problems – distributing condoms one day and accelerating growth another – while the true causes are not confronted. All with a profound disdain for the essential.

Cristovam Buarque has a Ph.D. in economics. He is a PDT senator for the Federal District and was Governor of the Federal District (1995-98) and Minister of Education (2003-04). Last year he was a presidential candidate. You can visit his homepage – www.cristovam.com.br – and write to him at cristovam@senador.gov.br.

Translated from the Portuguese by Linda Jerome – LinJerome@cs.com.

The director of the National Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD)/AIDS Program, Pedro Chequer, attributes some of this progress to a more flexible attitude on the part of the Catholic Church in relation to the use of condoms, unlike its outright opposition in the decade of the ’80’s.

In a National Radio interview, Chequer observed that 25 years ago, the church tried to interfere with messages and government policies in favor of prevention.

At the time, the Ministry of Health sought to avoid religious and philosophical issues and place priority on scientific evidence favoring better health. "Nowadays, the Catholic population is adopting the use of condoms more and more," Chequer said.

He went on to point out that on various occasions the church has been a partner in the national effort on behalf of people’s lives and welfare. Along these lines, the Brazilian National Bishops’ Council (CNBB) created the AIDS Pastoral Commission in 1997.

Last year, however, in reprisal for her participation in campaigns promoting the use of condoms, the Brazilian singer, Daniela Mercury, had her invitation to participate in the Vatican’s Christmas Concert cancelled. a decision that was criticized by various Brazilian ministers and health specialists.

Agência Brasil

Four states will get half of the condoms – São Paulo (4.5 million), Rio de Janeiro (2.8 million), Bahia (2.5 million) and Pernambuco (2.3 million). For the sake of comparison, last year 11 million condoms were distributed throughout the whole country.

Spokesmen for the Program for Sexually Transmitted Disease/AIDS, say that the distribution is based on population, Carnaval traditions and expected number of tourists.

"It’s that time of year when we boost distribution because of the increase in demand," said an spokesperson for the Health Ministry’s anti-AIDS program.

The ministry says the increase in the number of condoms is directly related to its own perception, and the public’s, of the best way to prevent AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

A survey by the country’s most prestigious research laboratory in 2004 found that fully 96% of Brazilians believed in the efficiency of condoms.

As a result, there has been a steady rise in the distribution of condoms. Throughout the year of 2004 the ministry distributed a total of 154 million condoms, and in 2005 that number rose to 251 million. Problems with quality control prevented that number of being much higher.

This year, the problems resolved, the ministry aims to distribute no less than 1.5 billion condoms.

The government is also testing a machine that sells condoms for 10 cents each. If they are approved, the machines will be placed around the country.

Carnaval this year starts the night of February 24, a Friday and goes up to noon on Ash Wednesday, March 1st. It’s a time of loud music, plenty of booze, little clothing and lots of sex. Rio de Janeiro may have the best known festivities, but celebrations bigger or smaller are held all around the country.

Agência Brasil

That is up from 11 million condoms distributed during Carnaval in 2005. NGOs will be handing out the condoms at hospitals and health stations, and whenever reveling occurs: parades, dances, parties and on the streets.

"It’s that time of year when we boost distribution because of the increase in demand," said an spokesperson for the Health Ministry’s anti-AIDS program.

The ministry says the increase in the number of condoms is directly related to its own perception, and the public’s, of the best way to prevent AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

A survey by the country’s most prestigious research laboratory in 2004 found that fully 96% of Brazilians believed in the efficiency of condoms.

As a result, there has been a steady rise in the distribution of condoms. Throughout the year of 2004 the ministry distributed a total of 154 million condoms, and in 2005 that number rose to 251 million (the number could have been much higher, but there were many problems with quality control).

This year, the problems resolved, the ministry aims to distribute no less than 1.5 billion condoms.

The government is also testing a machine that sells condoms for 10 cents each. If they are approved, the machines will be placed around the country.

Carnaval this year starts the night of February 24, a Friday and goes up to noon on Ash Wednesday, March 1st. It’s a time of loud music, plenty of booze, little clothing and lots of sex. Rio de Janeiro may have the best known festivities, but celebrations bigger or smaller are held all around the country.

Agência Brasil

Now, Brazil’s Minister of Health, Saraiva Felipe, and the Minister-Head of the Special Secretariat for Women Policies, Nilcéa Freire, have come out publicly in favor of the presence of Daniela Mercury in the show.

Minister Felipe declared that the opposition to condoms "comes from isolated sectors" of the Catholic Church.

Minister Freire said that campaigns stimulating the use of condoms were an obligation of the government.

"The government has to furnish people with information and the means to protect themselves from AIDS/HIV. People’s religious beliefs are a personal matter," she said.

"Maybe the Vatican does not want Daniela Mercury in their show, but we certainly want her to continue participating in our AIDS/HIV campaigns here in Brazil by getting people to use condoms."

Agência Brasil

The false dilemma between prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS have caused unnecessary losses, wasted precious time and should be avoided in the future, according to a keynote speaker at this week’s annual session of the UN Commission on Population and Development.

In calling for an end to competing strategies aimed at combating the pandemic, Dr. Paulo Roberto Teixeira, Senior Consultant for the National STD/AIDS Program in Brazil’s Ministry of Health, told a press briefing today that prevention works, even when it involves groups of people that are difficult to reach.

But the positive impact of anti-retroviral treatment – even in settings characterized by abject poverty – is also real and could no longer be ignored, he added, stressing the same message he delivered yesterday to the Commission, which this year is focusing on population, development and HIV/AIDS, with particular emphasis on poverty.

“To conduct effective strategies, countries need to recognize that sexual activity is an inherent part of human behavior and that clear messages and inputs, like male and female condoms, were indispensable,” he said.

Dr Teixeira draws on his experience as one of the architects of Brazil’s pioneering national AIDS strategy, which was created in 1983 after only four known cases of the disease had been diagnosed there.

A follow-on national plan during the 1990s has been hailed worldwide for controlling the spread of the epidemic, and for maintaining very low levels of prevalence in that huge country.

One of its key aspects has been free and universal provision of antiretroviral drugs and the promotion of local manufacturing of those drugs, he added.

Dr. Teixeira said that without exception, in all the countries where the epidemic had been curbed or decreased, policies to promote the use of condoms had been adopted.

There was no evidence that moral recommendations, such as abstinence and fidelity, had any impact on infection prevention and curbing the epidemic.

Although the promotion of safer sex involved serious cultural, ethical and religious matters, that could not be allowed to become a barrier to prevention.

“We need a global strategy that takes into account the AIDS epidemic in all actions to promote development and to fight poverty, including economic adjustment plans and foreign debt relief,” he stressed

Although most of the countries affected have already adopted public policies and allocated funds to fight the epidemic, he felt a much greater effort would be necessary, nationally and internationally, to face the spread of the infection, to treat the people affected and to minimize its impact on populations.

According to Dr. Teixeira, some of the urgent issues that needed to be given priority in national agendas included: moving forward with strategies to reduce the costs of antiretroviral and other drugs and providing universal and free access to those drugs to guarantee the necessary compliance and regularity of treatment.

He also proposed reducing the vulnerability of women by fully implementing the Action Plan adopted by the 1995 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), as access to adequate sexual and reproductive health services was the only possibility of controlling the epidemic among that group.  

United Nations
www.un.org