Seke District, in Mashonaland East Province, has a quarterly uptake of 200 000 male condoms while female condoms have a range of 5 000 to 10 000, a National AIDS Council (NAC) official has said.
Speaking to Health Times in a recent interview, NAC District AIDS Coordinator (DAC) for Seke District Florence Nyandoro said:
Our quarterly average uptake for male condoms is 200 000 and the female condoms are in the range of 5 000 and 10 000.
What happens is that the awareness on female condoms came way later than that of male condoms.
Otherwise, awareness on the female condom is increasing which has resulted in the improved use of the female condom.
We are telling our community cadres to promote the female condom as much as they do the male condom.
We are hoping with time, the uptake of the female condom will be as high.
Nyandoro also said they have noted that in discordant couples, males would take female condoms for their partners. She said:
The other commendable thing we have observed is females are also taking male condoms.
There are very few cases in discordant couples where males take the female condom for their partners. This is very interesting.
We are encouraging and promoting the use of condoms because of their dual protection against STIs and HIV.
A discordant couple is a couple in which one partner has a sexually transmitted disease (STD), such as HIV, while the other partner does not.
Nyandoro also dismissed as false claims that some condoms are small because they are manufactured in China. She said:
That condoms here in Zimbabwe are too small as being made in China is misinformation and a myth.
Alongside our partners, we tell communities that there is no truth in that. Condoms are manufactured in a one size fits all technique.
There is no such thing as condoms being small and unusable. We don’t encourage such mindsets.
If we give people accurate information, this promotes the usage of condoms thus protecting people from unwanted pregnancies, STIs and HIV.
Nyandoro discouraged the use of herbal sex-enhancement drugs, saying people should seek medical advice.