Individuals and groups in the resource-poor South must stop envying their Northern cousins and find creative ways of opening up access to care and treatment, according to a key treatment advocate from Brazil.

''Just because you don't have antiretroviral drugs, it doesn't mean you sit and around doing nothing," says Ezio Tavora dos Santos Filho of Grupo Pela Vida of Rio de Janiero, a resource person for Tuesday night's session on treatment access by and for the South.

''If there are social movements in each country and they can find ways to get access to treatment, then you will have change," he told The Bridge. "But if people just sit down and wait for the government to decide to give them help, it will never happen."

After years of persistent and vigorous campaigning by activists and community groups, he says Brazil will spend CHF1.2 billion this year for antiretroviral drugs.

this story can also be found in The Bridge, the onsite print newspaper

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