A local non-governmental organisation (NGO) which offers free HIV services to sex workers says there has been a notable uptake of female condoms since the introduction of flavoured varieties, reported ZimLive.
The Centre for Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Research (CeSHHAR) has been distributing female condoms for some time, but they have observed a rise in uptake since the introduction of flavoured condoms.
Speaking to journalists recently, Audrey Chikeya, CeSHHAR’s HIV outreach officer for Kadoma, said:
With female condoms, we have seen an increase in uptake because when we started, female condoms were not very popular with the sex workers but last month, we had 600 female condoms of different flavours distributed to them.
They are flavoured with strawberry, vanilla and all and they are now a hit. We have attributed that to the different flavours that come with female condoms, which then attract more partners for the sex workers.
They say it’s more marketable and sometimes their partners feel like they don’t need to wear a condom but if it’s the women wearing one, then it’s fine.
Chikeya also attributed the increased uptake of female condoms to their sexual education awareness programmes targetting sex workers. She said:
We can have an average of 20 clients per day, translating to about 100 in a week but most of them are female sex workers.
For males, we see about three to five sex workers including the transgender but the number is rising.
We screen them for sexually transmitted infections and treat them, we also do condom education and other HIV services for free to sex workers in Mhondoro and Sanyati Districts.
Chikeya said since 2021, about 5,000 male and female sex workers from Sanyati and Mhondoro Districts of Mashonaland West Province have benefited from CeSHHAR’s condom use promotion, free HIV testing and treatment, STI screening and treatment programmes.
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