Alana Gandra
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Rio - The Ministry of Health reports that it intends to distribute some 25 million Condoms for Carnival. The annual distribution will be different this year: it will begin today and end on Friday (February 17), a week before the festivities begin. 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, carnival traditions and expected number of tourists.

Translation: Allen Bennett