Brasília – The latest United Nations Population Fund report shows that Brazil has made significant advances in lowering infant and maternal mortality rates, AIDS combat and education.

According to Tania Patriota, the fund's representative in Brazil, "Brazil made advances in almost all areas." The highlight, she said, was the success in preventing and treating AIDS. The main challenges facing Brazil are to universalize access to healthcare, especially for mothers, and education, especially for adolescents.

The report, entitled "The Cairo Consensus Ten Years Later: Population, Reproductive Health and the Effort to Eliminate Poverty." also discusses the progress and difficulties countries face as they seek to achieve the targets set for the year 2015 in areas such as environmental protection, population and poverty control, migration and urbanization, gender discrimination and the already mentioned problem of reproductive health.

Agência Brasil
Reporter: Benedito Mendonça
Translator: Allen Bennett
09/16/2004