Health Worker Decries Lack Of Awareness On Female Condoms

A health worker on HIV/AIDS prevention, Mr Farouk Musa, has decried the low level of awareness, availability and use of female condoms in the country.

Musa, who is also the Programme Manager of Enhancing Nigeria’s Response to HIV/AIDS, an NGO, told newsmen in Abuja that it was surprising that most women have not heard or seen female condoms.

He said that a female condom was as effective as male condom, stressing that more awareness needed to be done to promote accessibility to the female condoms.

“Most women do not know about female condoms, not to talk of even the males, we are trying as much as possible to make it available, in the last three months, we have distributed over 200,000 pieces of female condoms.

“And it’s surprising that women, even educated women haven’t seen it before, so you can imagine the ordinary woman in the rural areas.

“So, what we are trying to do is to try and make female condoms as popular and accessible as that of the males,” he said.

Musa said, however, that there had been complaints from some women on usage of female condoms, advising the women to follow the usage instructions to get the maximum benefit of the facility.

He said that before now, the female condoms were expensive but that government had given import waivers on condoms as its contribution to making it more available.

“Before now, the female condom was scarce, that was one of our challenges, but now, it’s available and it’s almost the same price with the cheapest condoms you can have in the market.

“The issue of condoms is not about the price, for instance the gold circle. The reason why the gold circle is very cheap is because we have waivers, we do not pay any import duty on it,” he said.

Speaking on the importance of condom use, Musa said that condoms were the only contraceptive that provides dual protection against pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections and HIV.

He said that the goal of the programme was to ensure that in the urban areas, access to condom use should not exceed a 20 minutes’ walk, while in the rural areas, it should be within 15 minutes walk.

Musa said it was important that collaborations were done with State Governments, especially those with high HIV and AIDS prevalence as this would ensure that Nigeria reduced the burden of the disease.

On the challenges facing condom use in the country, Musa said that things were changing, compared to what obtained previously.

“We had a lot of challenges in terms of condoms; there is the cultural and religious challenge where people do not want to talk about condoms.

“I think gradually, things are beginning to change, condoms are now being promoted as dual protection mechanism, it is easier to promote it, especially among the faith-based organisations,” he said.