Inter Press Service - July 6, 2005
Gustavo González

The controversy that has always surrounded government campaigns to curb the spread of AIDS, mainly due to opposition from conservative Catholic Church sectors, has taken on greater significance in view of the upcoming presidential elections in December, prompting greater caution on the part of the Chilean authorities. Beginning in 1993, and every two years since, the Chilean government has undertaken campaigns aimed at raising AIDS awareness through posters, newspapers, magazines, radio and television. The information provided through these initiatives has been consistently censored by the Catholic university stations in Santiago and Valparaíso and by Megavisión, a privately owned TV network.

On Jun. 22, Chilean Health Minister Pedro García announced that the government would be launching this year's campaign after the Dec. 11 general elections, to keep it from becoming "politicised." But barely 48 hours later, he abruptly reversed that decision in the face of protests from the three main presidential hopefuls.

Socialist Michelle Bachelet, candidate for the ruling centre-left coalition Concertación por la Democracia, and the two right-wing contenders, liberal businessman Sebastián Piñera and conservative former mayor of Santiago Joaquín Lavín, unanimously refuted García's contention that the electoral race could interfere with a public health initiative.

As a result, on Jun. 24, García reported that the campaign would kick off in mid- or late September. He added that it would not include TV commercials, but would concentrate mainly on "field work and radio messages," to avoid disputes with television stations.

On Jun. 28, Interior Minister Francisco Vidal clarified that while the campaign would not make use of TV commercials, it would include brief public service announcements, shorter than the average commercial, and he urged all TV stations to cooperate by broadcasting them.

That same day, the Chilean authorities signed an agreement with the United Nations-sponsored Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to extend a cooperation agreement initiated in 2003, thereby securing over 24 million dollars in funds up through the year 2008.

The extension of the cooperation agreement was cast into doubt following the health minister's first announcement, which even prompted warnings of possible impeachment proceedings in the Chilean Congress given his failure to support such an essential public safety task as AIDS prevention.

The first case of HIV/AIDS was reported in Chile in 1984, and since then over 3,000 people have died of the disease.

The latest statistics from the National AIDS Commission, dating from 2004, indicate that there are over 6,000 reported cases of people with AIDS in Chile and another 6,500 who are infected with HIV but have not yet developed the disease. However, the government estimates that the real number of people infected with the virus is 32,000, while non-governmental organisations place the figure at over 50,000, out of a total population of 15.9 million.

"Chile as a whole cannot just look the other way when six people contract HIV/AIDS every day," stated Vidal, referring to the statistics.

The last five years have seen a growing "feminisation" of HIV/AIDS in Chile, as the rate of infection has increased 29.1 percent among women, compared with 15 percent annually for men.

Most of the women newly diagnosed with the virus are homemakers who have been infected by their husbands. As a result, the newest government HIV/AIDS campaign will seek to raise awareness of the importance of condom use in both heterosexual and homosexual sexual relations when there are risk factors involved, such as extramarital sex or sex with multiple partners.

This increased emphasis on condom use was praised by Dr. Alejandro Afani, head of the immunology department at the public University of Chile Clinical Hospital.

Rodrigo Pascal, coordinator of Vivo Positivo (Living Positive), an umbrella group linking 30 non-governmental organisations, said that he did not want to comment on the new campaign "until it is actually on the air."

"From my perspective and from the perspective of Vivo Positivo, promoting the use of condoms is definitely the direction that the campaign should take," he told IPS.

"What we have to do is make information available to young people, because 45 percent of young people who are sexually active do not use protection," Dr. Enrique Accorsi, a lawmaker from the co-governing Party for Democracy and former president of the Chilean Medical Association, commented to IPS.

"We have to emphasise condom use, and education, and also the benefits of a stable relationship with a single partner, as well as abstinence, and we have to place equal emphasis on all of them, not on just one method," he added.

As far as Accorsi is concerned, "in any campaign to educate the public, television is irreplaceable." He said he hoped the public service announcements announced by Vidal would be effective, because "failing to use television is like condemning the campaign to complete and utter failure."

For his part, Afani commented to IPS that television "is fundamental, and (the campaign) needs to be very well focussed, with very direct language, well aimed and with no backtracking, not like the way things have been done in the past, but rather like it is done in countries where these campaigns have been successful."

Because of the fierce opposition to the promotion of condom use raised by the influential Chilean Catholic Church, past initiatives have contained overly cautious and sometimes ambiguous messages, a fact that limits their effectiveness, unlike the more successful campaigns carried out in countries like Spain or Brazil, according to specialists.

Pascal believes that it is crucial for the mass media and especially television to be incorporated in HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns. He also maintains that these efforts should be ongoing, and aimed particularly at the most vulnerable sectors at the times of greatest risk.

Given that young people are especially prone to engage in sexual relations, drug use and other high-risk behaviours summer, Pascal noted that "these are times when prevention is fundamental, although they are not the only ones."

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