Brazil sees slight decline in AIDS spread last year
The spread of the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, in Brazil saw a slight fall in 2004, the Health Ministry said in a report on Wednesday.

The number of new AIDS cases in Brazil, the most populous country in Latin America, fell from 33,904 in 2003 to 30,886 in 2004, and Brazilians with the HIV virus fell to 17.2 per 100,000 people in 2004 from 19.2 in 2003, the report said.

The report said the federal government carried out programs, including distribution of condoms and anti-retroviral medicines, assistance to critical groups like teenagers, young women and children, to control the spread of the fatal epidemic.

The government also provides free syringes to drug users to cutthe rate of AIDS transmissions through intravenous injections, which has proved to be an effective measure, the report said.

However, it said among the new cases of AIDS, the Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome, the black and brown infectors rose from 33.4 percent to 37.2 percent for men and from 35.6 percent to 42.4 percent for women from 2000 and 2004.

From 1980 to June this year, the country recorded a total of 372,000 AIDS cases, said Pedro Chequer, director of Brazil's National STI/AIDS program.

"In both men and women, you can see there is an increase in the number of cases transmitted by heterosexual intercourse and a decrease in cases due to intravenous drug use," the official added.