Policy memo for a health policy Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Policy memo for a health policy - Research Paper Example This followed the cumulative AIDs cases that had doubled to 51,000 from 25,000 by the year 1992 (Simao 3). The main mode of transmission was identified as being sexual intercourse which contributed to more than 97 percent of the total cases. The age group that was mostly affected was the ages between 25 and 35. The male IDU as well as the MSM populations were identified as the ones to be at most risk with the incidence rates being placed at 15 times more than the nation’s general population. At the same time, the infection rates were also observed to be sky rocketing and this was mostly observed among poor people and women in small towns. This alarming situation left the AIDs officials to refer to the AIDS trends in Brazil as being ruralisation, pauperization and feminization. Measures had to be put in place to combat the disease progress in Brazil. The earliest and most aggressive response were witnessed in the cooperation between civil society and government and grounded with respect to human rights. This made the issue being viewed as being an international success. It will be remembered that Brazil became the first developing country in 1996 to come out publicly and offer financed antiretroviral treatment to its citizens living with HIV/AIDs. By the year 2000, the HIV epidemic in Brazil had stabilized and the figures were compared to those in Western Europe and the United States with the highest rates of infection being witnessed among the high-risk groups like sex workers, gay men and injection drug users (Simao 7). However, the country still faced a number of challenges as in 2009, new AIDs cases were seen to increases among gay men, poor women and young people in smaller cities where civil society advocacy and health system were weakest. In addition to this, infection rates were observed to increase in towns and cities were the HIV/AIDs programs were