Monrovia, Liberia - Health authorities in Liberia are working to develop a five-year plan on male/female condom use and availability in the country, sources close to the health ministry indicated here Thursday.

Dr. Saye Baawo, who heads the family health division at the ministry, told PANA that stakeholders were working on the plan that would be ready shortly.

He said participants at a three-day workshop discussed the development of a comprehensive condom programming strategic plan in Liberia and left the matter with stakeholders to produce the plan expected to include male/female condom use and availability, condom safety, as well as sustained national awareness against STIs (sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS).

The workshop, which ended here Thursday, reviewed findings on a Condoms Situation Analysis conducted in six of Liberia's 15 counties last April.

The Liberia Demography Health Survey showed that the country had an average of 1.6 per cent condom use, with 2.5 per cent in urban areas and 1.1 per cent in rural areas.

Deputy health minister, Dr. Bernice Dahn, who is also the chief medical officer of Liberia, challenged participants to roll out male and female condoms after the workshop.

Earlier, UNFPA resident representative in Liberia, Rose Gakuba, blamed the lack of information and access, failure of spouses to negotiate the use of condoms with partners and opposition of others to condom because they associated it with immorality, for the low use of condoms in the country.

She warned that for condom programming to succeed in Liberia, it would require political will, national leadership and integration of the use of condoms in HIV/AIDS awareness and placing condoms on the national drugs list as well as waiving tariffs on condoms.

Gakuba said the UNFPA would support the five-year plan for condom programming for family planning and use for protective sex in lowering HIV.

Meanwhile, Liberia's health minister, Dr. Walter Gwenigale, has bitterly criticized parents for neglecting to provide sex education for their children, saying: " Here we do not want to talk about sex and the use of condoms due to culture and religion. But 10-year-olds are getting pregnant.

"Sex is a topic we hardly want to mention in Sunday schools or in our schools, but young people are dying of AIDS," the physician, with nearly four decades of practice, lamented at the workshop.

As teenage pregnancy is common everywhere in the country, Dr. Gwenigale warned that "it was high time that people talked about sex with their children.

"I hope that following this workshop we will not only have talked about how to distribute condoms but also how to sell the idea about condom use to prevent sexual diseases, save lives and not to be promiscuous," he told the participants.

Disclosing that donations of condoms from donors were left to "rot at times beca use no one would want to use them", the health minister urged the participants to actively promote the use of condoms in the Liberian society.

A survey by PANA has found billboards against HIV/AIDS very uncommon in Monrovia and in the rural areas. One is even surprised to see no packages of condoms conspicuously displayed in pharmacies, entertainment centres and shops.
 
Monrovia - 14/08/2008

Pana