[Hache Man]

SAO PAULO • As Brazilians get ready for their annual Carnival celebrations, the government is urging them to practise safe sex and avoid drinking too much.

"Everybody has the right to have fun and enjoy themselves but it is important to remember that the next week we have to work and look after our families," President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said yesterday.
The government also started handing out millions of free condoms at the weekend as part of its campaign to combat AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases during Carnival.

Five days of frenzied festivities kick off on Friday, with the biggest parties in Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and Recife.

Latin America's largest country stops work and indulges in a riot of drinking, dancing and parades accompanied by often licentious behavior.
Lula appealed in his weekly radio address for people to be careful during the partying.

"No one needs to drink or do anything more than normal to enjoy themselves," he said.

Lula is known as a gregarious character who himself enjoys a drink. His dour warning appeared to be partly prompted by a rise in deaths and accidents from drunken driving during the Christmas holidays. The Health Ministry launched its annual safe sex campaign on Sunday under the slogan "Good in bed means wearing a condom."

"We have to let people know the importance of prevention," Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao said at an event in Rio. States and municipalities in the world's largest Roman Catholic country will distribute 19.5 million free condoms for Carnival.
An education programme will focus on alerting young women to the dangers of unprotected sex and encourage them to demand that their partners wear condoms.