Originally published August 9 2005
India attempts to combat AIDS
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
In an attempt to combat AIDS, India is releasing female condoms to sex workers.
A government study in 2004 showed that despite annual sales of 1.6 billion male condoms, cases of HIV in India had reached 5.1 million, second only to South Africa, and that a third of them were women.
Ayyappan said some male clients resisted using condoms when they visited sex workers which was one reason why the government's strategy to promote male condoms as the primary protection against infection had achieved only limited success.
"Female condoms will transfer the power of decision-making to women," Ayyappan said.
HLL will initially import condoms from the London factory of Chicago-based Female Health Co. and start selling them in September, Ayyappan said, without detailing how many would be imported.
While a yearlong study funded by the two companies showed that 94 percent of sex workers polled liked and wanted to use the female condom, Ayyappan said one of the difficulties in promoting it would be price.
India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has agreed to support the new product as part of the National AIDS Control Program and is considering a subsidy to bring down the price to 12 cents for commercial sex workers.
A typical sex worker gets anywhere between $1 and $23 per client although most women's earnings are nearer the lower end of the range.
Chandrasekhar Gowda, who heads a non governmental project teaching sex workers how to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, said that sex workers needed more than just a condom.
She will no longer be dependent on the man's decision," Gowda said.
"But it can be fully successful only if sex workers are able to negotiate the use of condom with their clients.
We must work to increase the negotiating power of sex workers so that men come to accept female condoms.
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