AIDS

 The first documented outbreak of Auto-Immune Deficiency Syndrome in Brazil occurred in 1982. The disease spread exponentially throughout the next two decades. In response, the government and nongovernmental organizations became involved, emphasizing condom use and providing free anti-retroviral drugs to sufferers since 1996. Today, the United Nations considers Brazil’s anti-AIDS program the most successful in the developing world.

As Brazil was developing a public health policy to fight AIDS, its population was struggling with the acknowledgment and acceptance of the disease. Announcements by celebrities of their HIV-positivity, like that of singer-songwriter Cazuza in 1987, were instrumental in making the Brazilian public aware of the disease as something that affected all parts of society. At the same time, some people—including celebrities like Renato Russo, lead singer of the seminal ’90s rock band Legião Urbana—feared marginalization if the public became aware of their HIV-positive status.

The Brazilian government extended its concern over the spread of AIDS even to traditionally marginalized groups. It recruited sex workers to help with the cause in the 2000s, distributing a series of pamphlets titled “Maria Without Shame” that tell the story of a prostitute who uses condoms and promote an empowered view of women in the sex industry. In 2005, Brazil forfeited a $48,000 grant from the United States Agency for International Development when it refused to publicly denounce prostitution as “dehumanizing and degrading.”

Film Depictions

  • Cazuza o tempo não pára is a fictionalized biopic of the life and death of Cazuza, a 1980s Brazilian rock legend who died of complications from AIDS in 1990. (Cazuza o tempo não pára, DVD, produced by Sandra Werneck, et al. 2005-Brazil: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.)
  • Renato Russo is a compilation of interviews with Renato Russo, the deceased lead singer of Legião Urbana (“Urban Legion”), a 1980s–90s Brazilian rock/folk/punk band. Legião Urbana remains a very popular Brazilian band, long after Russo’s death to complications from AIDS in 1996. (Renato Russo, Entrevistas, DVD, produced by Marcelo Fróes. 2005-Rio de Janeiro: MTV, 1993–1994.)

Sources

  • Minemyer, Paige. “Brazil’s AIDS success story faces uncertain new chapter.” The Miami Herald, 12 June, 2012.
  • Reel, Monte. “Where Prostitutes Also Fight AIDS.” Washington Post, 2 March, 2006.