Argentina: Less than two in ten people use a condom

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It was in 2012 that the US AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) proposed February 13 as World Condom Day, in an effort to reduce the spread of HIV through safe sexual practices. Since its inception in 2009, it has been an informal celebration celebrated in conjunction with Valentine's Day.

According to the results of an investigation carried out by AHF Argentina, only 14.5% of Argentines use a condom in all their sexual relations, 65% do so only sometimes and 20.5% never. As if this were not enough, recently, in the framework of the Covid-19 pandemic, 61.5% of people did not have access to free condoms both because there was no availability in the place where they usually withdraw or because they were not They were able to approach the place due to circulation restrictions, they warn from the organization.

Natalia Haag, director of HIV Testing and Prevention of AHF Argentina said, 51.6% normally withdrew in hospitals or public health centers, places that mostly focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, losing efforts in other health issues.

Condoms are essential for protecting people's health during the Covid-19 pandemic. The non-profit organization has established in its recommendations at the beginning of it, prioritize actions for the prevention of HIV and other STIs, among them, the continuation of its condom distribution program, taking care of healthy distance measures.

For their part, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV / AIDS ( UNAIDS ), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Global Coalition for HIV Prevention, made a global call for the start of the pandemic to recognize that condoms and other contraceptives are essential products, to maintain condom production, to respond to the needs of key communities and young people, and to sustain condom delivery by supporting social distancing.

Terri Ford, Head of Global Policy and Advocacy by AHF said, Quarantine and restrictions due to COVID-19 have been a constant threat to access to condoms, particularly in countries where stock-outs and other barriers already made it difficult for people to obtain condoms.

Along the same lines, Michael Weinstein, president of the foundation, said, we have always placed access to condoms high on our list of priorities. International Condom Day provides us with a platform to ask governments and public health institutions to make sure people have the tools to protect themselves and their loved ones, which is especially important when we still see 1, 7 million new HIV infections each year. That is simply not acceptable when we have the means to distribute condoms to people around the world to keep them safe from preventable diseases.

If clinical care has been overhauled and adapted in many facilities throughout the region to assist patients with Covid-19, so too, we must readjust the policies for the prevention of HIV and AIDS as well as all STIs, adopting communication strategies, promotion of their use, purchase and distribution of condoms, so that they reach those who need them, concluded Guillermina Alaniz, Director of Advocacy for AHF Latin America and the Caribbean.

According to the results obtained from an investigation that made AHF Argentina , only 14.5% of Argentines use condoms in all sexual relations, the 65% it does so only sometimes and 20.5% never. Furthermore, in our country more than 98% of infections are caused by unprotected sex and it is estimated that 139,000 people live with HIV, of which 17% do not know their diagnosis.

There are 1.7 million new HIV infections annually and more than 1 million new cases of curable STIs every day, according to UNAIDS and the World Health Organization, respectively. An unacceptable fact when those conditions are 100 percent preventable: Governments and global health organizations must do more to ensure that people have easy access to free or inexpensive condoms.

According to data from the latest Epidemiological Bulletin of the Directorate of AIDS, STDs, Hepatitis and TBC of the Ministry of Health of the Nation, in recent years, throughout the world and especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, there has been an increase in the incidence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), with a clear predominance of syphilis over the others.

The researchers said, it is essential that the prevention of STIs in this population is based on counseling on risk behaviors, prevention measures (mainly the proper use of condoms), vaccination against HPV and hepatitis B plus laboratory screening. From the responses of more than 30,000 people to whom we carried out the rapid and confidential HIV test, we have determined that only 14.5% always use a condom, while 65% use it on some occasions and 20 5% acknowledged never using it.

On the trend of little use of condoms, Haag said: “We believe that there is a relaxation around preventive measures due to the fact that HIV has become a chronic infection and no longer something deadly. The lack of propaganda as a public policy on the importance of use, and the lack of correct implementation of the Comprehensive Sex Education Law also make it difficult for adolescents to become aware of condom use at a young age and initiate their protected sexual activity”.