Breathe Easy
Brazilian soap opera actor Lázaro Ramos models a T-shirt with the windmill TB awareness logo. He appears in TV commericals aimed at reducing the stigma of TB patients.
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A health campaign in Brazil has been a breath of fresh air in a country that viewed tuberculosis as an old fashioned disease. The Global Fund has helped bring about a shift in mentality through TV advertising. The information campaign features a windmill motif to represent the winds of change mobilizing action on TB.
Actor Lázaro Ramos stars in the TV clip having a friendly conversation with recovered TB patients. The cult soap opera personality wanted to share stories of triumphing over TB because before becoming an actor he was a lab technician in a TB laboratory. His message encouraging treatment and tolerance reached over 70 million people on the first screening alone and has got the public talking about a disease that was previously obscure.
TB prevention and control is considered a national priority for a country that is ranked 15th in the world in terms of TB cases. People living in the outskirts of Brazil’s ten metropolitan areas came to the city to find work, but the slums - or ‘favelas’ - have poor living conditions producing more TB cases than in the rest of the country.
Although TB is fairly common, affecting around one in every 2000 people, people were slow in seeking treatment, often only coming forward for treatment at an advanced stage of the illness. Despite a free national phone line for health enquiries, no one was asking about TB.
As soon as the windmill information campaign swung to public attention, people started taking an interest and within a few months, five percent of calls to the national health phone line were about TB.
Interviews
Marcos Mandelli, Global Fund coordinator, explains the symbolic value of the windmill, mobilizing partners to get rid of the virus. |
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| Daniel de Souza, director of the publicity campaign, talks about attitudes to TB in Brazil. |
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Listen to the interviews