Cecília Jorge and Juliana Andrade
Reporters - Agência Brasil

Brasília - 600 thousand of Latin America's total of 1.8 million HIV carriers live in Brazil, according to the Global Report on AIDS for 2005. The document was released today (21) by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Since 2003, 200 thousand new cases have been reported in Latin America, as well as 66 thousand deaths. The report explains that the large concentration of cases in Brazil is basically a reflection of the country's large population of around 180 million inhabitants.

With regard to Brazil, the study emphasizes the lack of information among young people in the 15-24 age bracket about the ways the disease is transmitted. In spontaneous responses, around 38% of them were unable to name the means of infection. According to Pedro Chequer, director of Brazil's National Program for Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD/AIDS), when the responses are elicited in the form of multiple choice, over 90% of the youth display knowledge of the topic.

With regard to the global situation, the report indicates that, despite the drop in the number of cases reported in some countries, the AIDS epidemic continues to expand, reaching a total of around 40.3 million people in 2005. In 2003 the total number of victims was 37.5 million (the report omits data referring to 2004).

Translation: David Silberstein