TOO MANY CONDOMS, VERY FEW USERS

The National Aids Council of Zambia reported that the usage of condoms in the country has gone down. There are about 40 million uncollected pieces of condoms which were supposed to have been distributed to various communities.  I don’t know what you think but to me this could either be good news or bad news. 

Let us hope that the National Aids Council is not just interested in offloading the condoms to the public without studying the reason why the demand for condoms has gone down. AIDS is a killer and therefore fear would be the first thing that comes to most people’s minds when confronted with this situation. This may mean that people have stopped using condoms and are now infecting each other with the virus. There is no doubt in my mind that this is what the National AIDS Council’s fears are and it is what led them to issue this statement.

A condom is a consumer product whose sales figures will depend on demand.  If there are many people having illicit or casual sex then the demand for the condom will be high. If there are fewer people engaging in such kind of sex, then the demand will be low. People who are faithful and only have one sexual partner rarely use condoms. Look at it this way, if the sales of ammunition drops on the market then there must be few people shooting guns.

The big question is; has the number of people having illicit sex reduced or have people just become careless and stopped using condoms? Ironically, even the numbers of adverts warning people to use condoms seem to have reduced. A few years ago condom adverts were very common both in the print and electronic media. You couldn’t have turned on the TV for an hour without seeing a condom advert.

These adverts have been replaced with misleading adverts informing people to go for male circumcision if they wanted to reduce their chances of being infected with HIV and other diseases that are sexually transmitted. I would not be surprised if the campaign for male circumcision can be partially to blame for the drop in the demand for condoms. Some people may have foolishly stopped using condoms after being circumcised.

If there are tons of condoms lying around uncollected, is it not the responsibility of the people keeping the condoms to take them to the people? I am sure there are certain areas where prostitution is rife and where the infection rate is high. These are areas where these condoms should be taken for massive distribution alongside sensitization messages.

Many people avoid walking in a store to buy condoms from the counter.  This is not because they do not like using condoms but they just do not want people to think they are going to have sex and this is because condoms have been associated with promiscuity.  Some public places have tried to come up with innovative ways of distributing condoms by placing them in the toilets and this has been a success because the condoms usually finish in a short space of time.

This method of condom distribution is effective but someone has to buy the condoms and the people who use them pay nothing. Although condoms are not very expensive, very few public places would take up the responsibility of buying condoms for their patrons.  

Whatever the case may be, the drop in condom use is surely one that must be studied thoroughly so that we understand if we are heading in the right direction or not.

Image courtesy of Africa/freedigitalphotos.net