The Ministry of Health invested only R$100,098 in HIV prevention campaigns in 2021. The amount is equivalent to 0.6% of the total investment over 20 years ago, in 1998, the oldest data available. At that time, the investment was R$16.5 million (adjusted for inflation).
Looking at the last three governments, the amount allocated to campaigns against AIDS peaked in 2018, during the Temer administration, at R$22 million, which is slightly higher than the expenditure of the Dilma Rousseff government in 2015 (20.1 R$)
Millions).
However, the sharp decline towards minimum investment last year occurred at the start of Bolsonaro’s government. In 2019, the Ministry of Health allocated R$14.8 million, resources that were largely earmarked for the previous administration.
In 2020, the first year of the union budget proposed by the Bolsonarista administration, the decline was even greater: 3.9 million Brazilian reals were allocated to official propaganda against HIV, four times less than in 2019.
Values from 2015 were calculated from 21 bills paid to advertising agencies and communications media, according to data obtained via the Access to Information Act (request 4452351 submitted to the Ministry of Health), which can be accessed by the blog.
The amount spent in 1998 is shown on the ministry’s website, but no public data is available for other years, from 1999 to 2014.
In a letter in response to LAI, the Ministry of Health attributed the drop in investment between 2020 and 21 to the Covid epidemic, which limited the publication of prevention campaigns “only on the date of December 1” (World AIDS Day.) last year.
Campaign emptied
Bolsonaro’s government has significantly reduced investment in advertising campaigns to prevent AIDS
Source: Ministry of Health via LAI
In addition to the reduction in funding, documents show that Bolsonaro’s government has excluded some of the population most vulnerable to the AIDS epidemic from prevention campaigns.
Until then, educational, repetitive, and anti-discriminatory actions targeting sex workers, men who have sex with men, and gay and transgender youth (transgender, transgender men and women) were ostracized.
The exclusion is evident in the ministry’s briefings that served as the basis for campaign preparation by government contracted advertising agencies, which are also included in the LAI.
In 2020 and 2021, the briefings only mentioned the general population, youth, women during antenatal care, and health managers and professionals.
Although they are relevant audiences, which must also be reached through prevention messages, there is no technical or epidemiological justification for excluding others.
Prior to the Bolsonaro government, through focused announcements in the Ministry of Health, targeted informational actions were planned to reach the most vulnerable populations, as explained in the briefings, which also highlighted the “positive and non-discriminatory” tone to be followed in the messages and pieces.
The change indicates an ideological influence in the management of the ministry, as indicated by the Covid CPI in its final report on the spread of early treatment in the fight against the epidemic.
The blog sought the Ministry of Health to find out the motives for the change in the file summaries and to exclude vulnerable groups from the target groups of the campaigns, in addition to the expectations for this year. By note, the ministry only stated that “the planning of advertising campaigns for 2022 is still ongoing.”
In Brazil, while HIV prevalence in the population as a whole has stabilized or decreased, the epidemic has remained concentrated at high levels or even increased in some segments of the population.
In accordance with international scientific technical recommendations, HIV programs should address “key populations”, which is the WHO’s name for those communities that require targeted and intense prevention campaigns.
Prior to 2019, the Department of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and AIDS at the Ministry of Health strictly followed scientific guidelines in defining the target audience.
It was assumed that HIV could affect anyone, regardless of sexual orientation, for example.
And rightly, after 1993, federal campaigns stopped blaming and risking HIV infection on groups or behaviors. Thus, the idea of “at-risk groups” has been eliminated since the beginning of the epidemic.
Among the advances in the response to AIDS in Brazil, a person with HIV today who receives appropriate antiretroviral therapy, available at SUS, does not transmit the virus.
Thus, it is about providing individuals with the knowledge that will allow them to access the best prevention adapted to their choices and contexts.
This includes providing everything from condoms and rapid tests to medications that people without HIV use before or after the risk of infection. It is called “joint prevention”.
The rule should be to use appropriate language for each audience, and to combine clear prevention messages with the promotion of human rights for the people most affected by AIDS.
In 2001, the Ministry of Health broadcast a historic prime-time campaign on Open TV. In it, the father and mother welcomed the homosexual son and spoke naturally about the young man’s friend. The film advised the use of condoms and brought a clear message of acceptance and tolerance.
The same logic of targeted and comprehensive campaigns has been repeated for two decades.
Conservative voices, including parliamentarians from the Evangelical Assembly, have tried every now and then to stop HIV campaigns addressing safe sex and non-discrimination against vulnerable populations. Pressure on Dilma Rousseff’s government led, in 2012, to halt plays targeting gay and sex workers.
Regardless of who holds the bag, in the past three years the Ministry of Health has adopted the “reactionary fraternity” tactic of ex-ante censorship of everything related to sex and gender issues that might displease Bolsonaro and his fundamentalist base.
Along these lines, former minister Luis Henrique Mandetta has argued that AIDS campaigns cannot “offend families,” and even vetoed a preventative pamphlet targeting transgender men.
When he was a federal lawmaker, Bolsonaro said that “those who don’t take care of themselves, if they get sick, that’s their problem,” referring to those living with HIV. In 2020, as president, he would say again that people living with HIV are “a expense for everyone in Brazil”.
Once again, Brazil is going in the opposite direction to the world. The coronavirus pandemic has hampered the prevention and care of other diseases. The performance of AIDS services was also affected, fewer HIV tests were administered, treatments were not started, and there was a decline in the distribution of condoms and medications used for prevention.
source: stadium
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