Myanmar to distribute 10 million free condoms

Asian Economic News, August 9, 2004

YANGON, Aug. 5 Kyodo

In a bid to stem HIV transmission though heterosexual contact, Myanmar will distribute 10 million free condoms and 30 million more at affordable prices this year, the country's National AIDS Program manager Min Thwe said late Wednesday.

Heterosexual intercourse is a major mode of HIV transmission in Myanmar, Min Thwe told Kyodo News in Yangon.

''About 70 percent of the AIDS cases in Myanmar were due to heterosexual contact,'' Min Thwe said, adding the rest are caused mostly by drug use.

The condom distribution plan is part of an anti-AIDS campaign to promote 100 percent use of condoms in targeted townships, especially in border areas and strategic towns in central Myanmar.

The campaign started with four townships in 2003 and had been expanded to 88 by June this year.

It will further expand to 100 townships before the year-end and to all 324 townships in the country by the end of 2008.

Min Thwe said the objective of supplying free condoms is to make using condoms normal practice for sex partners.

''We cannot provide them (free) condoms forever. Our aim is to create an awareness of the benefits so people will buy them for themselves in the future,'' Min Thwe said.

Min Thwe added that apart from supplying 10 million condoms free of charge, the program will distribute the 30 million more at affordable prices through international nongovernmental organizations.

Myanmar's junta estimates about 180,000 of the country's 53 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS.

But UNAIDS country coordinator Eamonn Murphy said last month that up to 620,000 people aged 15 to 49 are believed to have HIV in Myanmar.