Zambia in condom shortage-PPAZ

PPAZ Executive Director Edford Mutuma has since appealed to Government to come up with a condoms strategy that will promote access to the commodity.

Mr Mutuma revealed that on average, Zambia stocks between 100 and 120 million pieces of male condoms per year.
He said this distribution is not adequate to cater for the needs of all sexually active male Zambians.

‘We have never reached a peak for our condoms needs as a country. The maximum we do is usually between 100 and 120 million pieces, when you look at the sexually active population, translates into an average of 30 condoms per person per year,’ Mr Mutuma said.

He added, ‘For female condoms for example, our average is 3 million pieces per year and that is not enough because it means 2 condoms per month per woman.’

Mr Mutuma said Zambia has a shortage of condoms and needs to come up with a condom strategy to improve the distribution of the commodity.

‘We see a gap between distribution and access of the condoms. You find that urban areas have slightly more condoms than rural areas. Condoms are the most proven in HIV protection and they also prevent pregnancy. We need to come up with a strategy of how many condoms we need as a country and how we distribute them,’ Mr Mutuma said.

He added, ‘It’s very vital that we come up with a condom strategy so that we work on the issue of access to condoms. One of the challenges we have been having as a country is how to access the condoms, we have been having the traditional method of having condoms in clinics but we know that things don’t just happen during the day only, this makes it difficult for young people and adolescent to access condoms.’