[The civil society against aids: collective demands and public policies]

This article features a discussion about the bibliographical output on the organization of civil society in the campaign against Aids in Brazil. The objective was to analyze the different forms of articulation of the social players in accordance with the manifestation of collective needs and the achievement of public policies. The literature in the area of health and social sciences was reviewed from the outbreak of the Aids epidemic in Brazil through to the present moment. The results show that the pressure applied by mobilized groups at the beginning of the epidemic produced a response of the public authorities for whom the benchmark was right to access and comprehensive care of people infected with HIV/Aids. Currently, there are heterogeneous groups of organized civil society working on enhancing existing public policies and consolidating achievements in the area. The importance of this study lies in the need to strengthen collective action to demand answers from the public authorities in order to tackle the new needs of the campaign to fight Aids.