Condoms – male and female – are currently the only technology available for protection from the sexual transmission of HIV between partners. Yet, the need for condoms is much greater than the availability. An estimated 8 billion condoms were needed in 2000 to ensure access needed to reduce the rate of infection, however, donors provided just 950 million that year. By 2015, it is estimated that 18.6 billion condoms will be needed – so it is hard to believe that the United States is flooding countries with unwanted or unneeded condoms.
The current U.S. global HIV/AIDS program – PEPFAR – invests more intellectually, rhetorically and financially in abstinence until marriage programs than in a balanced approach that also addresses the needs of sexually active people.
The Administration has determined that of all HIV/AIDS prevention funds, 50% should be spent on addressing sexual transmission of HIV and 50% for preventing parent to child transmission and blood safety. Of the 50% for sexual transmission, 66% of the funds are targeted for abstinence until marriage programs and efforts to tell people to be faithful to their partner.
The United States has a narrow view of the role condoms should play in preventing transmission of HIV, structuring its efforts to provide condoms only for high-risk populations, ignoring that there is a crossover between high-risk population and the general public.
In Uganda, for example, the Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator determined that the total number of condoms that may be procured through U.S. funding is limited to the number that will cover only those in their definition of “high-risk” groups and are to be distributed in only limited areas, rather than supplementing the supply available to the general population for HIV prevention.
Despite a growing need for condoms – as birth control and HIV prevention – the US investment in these services has basically been stagnant over the past 10 years.
USAID, along with CDC, has censored information about condom effectiveness on its website.
USAID has even published a piece from the conservative Washington Times on its website that highlights the shift away from condoms toward a policy that downplays condom distribution.
