Bulgaria Ministry Defends Graphic Anti-HIV Ad, Cites Foreign Experience

"Do you know how I get into you? Through the front entrance, through the back door, through the blow job," says the virus in the video.

The controversial new anti-HIV campaign advertisement, which has unleashed angered responses in Bulgaria, seeks to provoke people into using condoms and was modeled on US and European examples, the health ministry said.

"The shooting of the video costs BGN 11,000 and was funded by the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria," the ministry said in a statement.

It points out that the video targets youths aged between 16 and 29 and sought provocation, following the examples set in the United States and Western Europe.

"This is the approach adopted in the United States and Western Europe, where AIDS prevention materials rely on provocation and information, just like this video," the statement underlines.

The video, shot to mark the World AIDS day as part of the national ANTI-AIDS campaign, graphically explains the way HIV is contracted, featuring a cartooned virus and steamy female and male private parts.

"Do you know how I get into you? Through the front entrance, through the back door, through the blow job," says the virus.

The video unleashed angered responses in the social network Facebook, where a sign-up was launched, demanding that the people behind it are revealed and the funding used paid back, if this is taxpayers' money.

Citizens, including prominent journalists, writers and translators, have sent a fuming letter to Tonka Varleva, Head of Bulgaria's Prevention and Control of HIV/AIDS program.

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