Issued by: The Department of Health
16 April 1998
The Department of Health will launch the female condom in a number of selected sites in June this year.
"The female condom offers women an opportunity to protect themselves with dual protection - this means a method where women can prevent both unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS." Dr Mhlanga, Director of Maternal, Child and Woman's Health, of the Department of Health said today.
"There are many lessons to learn and mistakes to be avoided when introducing a new method such as the female condom. We are keen to learn as much as we can during this trial phase of the introduction. The female condom will be available in a small number of clinics from June and these will be closely monitored before the female condom is made available more widely," he said.
"We know that many women are very keen to try the new device but we don't know how many will continue to use it on a longer term. Therefore, we will be watching these clinics very closely to measure the response carefully."
During the trial phase, the introduction of the female condom will be monitored closely by the Reproductive Health Research Unit, Chris Hani Bragwanath Hospital. The Unit has conducted training for clinic staff on the new device and also developed patient educational materials and systems to monitor its introduction in the selected clinics.
The clinics being monitored include selected primary health clinics, family planning clinics, adolescent health services in both rural and urban areas of several provinces.
The female condom will not be made more widely available unless the findings of the trial period support the expansion of the programme.
In order to share experiences of the introduction of the female condom, the South African Department of Health will join other countries in a three day consultation in Pretoria. The workshop will be hosted by UNAIDS from 20-22 April 1998. This workshop will enable countries to share experiences on the female condom in East and Southern Africa.
The consultation will include approximately 50-60 participants including selected United Nations organisations, donor agencies, national HIV/AIDS and STD and family planning programme managers and representatives from national and international non-governmental organisations working in sexual and reproductive health.