Daniel de Souza Director of X-Brasil Interview in English Windows Media | MP3

My name is Daniel de Souza, I am Director of X-Brasil, Communication in Public Causes.

At the end of each spot we put the “Health Hotline”, a number that people can call to get information on health issues. Before the campaign began, none of the calls received were related to TB. Now more than 5% of all calls made to get information on any health topic are people asking about TB. This figure was before Globo started airing the spots. It began last week, so I think this number could be higher still.

What I think is important to say about the case of TB and, for me, what has always been a motivating factor, is this: we can talk about AIDS, dengue fever. We can talk about many diseases that, in Brazil, unfortunately, still exist, but in numerical terms, TB is tantamount to genocide, it’s a massacre. There are 5,000 people dying every year from a disease for which there is a cure. It’s what we said in our first campaign: “it’s unacceptable”. And with 80,000 infected [per year].

So, how did we get to this state? Recently in Brazil there was an outbreak of dengue fever. Between 100 and 200 people died and it was a big scandal. It was in all the newspapers, all the editorials, all the magazines. Was it a disaster? Yes, 100 to 200 people died. But no one speaks out about the 5,000, you understand? There’s a large disparity here.

I think that putting this out in the media like we’ve been able to, ostensibly every month for a period of 5 years, is what will make the government, state and municipal authorities, and even society, the medical profession, do something about it. This can’t go on, can it? If we were talking about a disease that had no cure, like the bubonic plague, that’s one thing, but we’re talking about tuberculosis.