[afro-nets] Reuse of Female Condom

[Claudio Schuftan <aviva@netnam.vn>]

Reuse of Female Condom
----------------------

Having just read the item on the popularity of the female condom
among Cambodian sex workers, I thought the following information
would be of interest (some of you may be aware of this already)

--
In July 2002, WHO published a clinical protocol with guidelines
for reuse of the Female Condom.[*] Although the protocol states
that a new condom is always preferable, in situations where they
are not available or affordable, evidence suggests that the fe-
male condom can be used safely at least 5 times if the WHO
guidelines are followed. WHO will shortly be releasing the pro-
grammatic guidelines to compliment the clinical guidelines.

To support these guidelines the Female Health Foundation and
John Snow International (UK) have launched a website to address
issues around reuse (at http://www.reusefemalecondom.org). This
DFID funded website aims to assist programme managers in decid-
ing whether or not to support reuse of the female condom within
their programme/client base.

Some of you may have already visited the Reuse of the Female
Condom website and been following or participating in the dis-
cussions there. An interesting issue was discussed recently. It
was found in Lesotho that family planning clinics were providing
young girls with female condoms only to discover that the girls
stripped the rings from the condoms and used them as bangles.
Advice was sought from the reuse discussion group on how this
problem should be dealt with. It was quickly pointed out that
this should not be viewed as a problem. The very fact that the
young girls felt comfortable enough to approach the clinics for
the condoms and use them as fashion accessories shows that the
stigma surrounding the female condom is slowly being eroded.

If you would like to contribute to any of the ongoing discus-
sions or have any issues or concerns you would like to highlight
regarding reuse of the female condom, you can post your message
directly on the website. If you are not able to access the web-
site, you can send your message to <info@reusefemalecondom.org>
and the message will be posted on your behalf (responses to your
message will be mailed to you). If you would like to be keep in-
formed about the online discussions by e-mail, and therefore
avoid having to check the website, please
mailto:info@reusefemalecondom.org
with
Reuse Website List Serve
in the subject line.

--
[*] The Safety and Feasibility of Female Condom Reuse: Report of
a WHO Consultation
Download as MS WORD document (18 pp. 125 kB) at:
http://www.who.int/reproductive-health/rtis/report_reuse.doc