Condoms save lives says Health

Health Ministry C.E.O. Toleafoa Dr. Take Naseri is calling for people to use condoms to help stop the spread of potentially fatal diseases.

This comes in the wake of the new Representative and Director of the of the United Nations Population Fund (U.N.F.P.A.) Pacific Sub-Regional Office stating that access to birth control is a basic human right.

While Dr. Zessler was talking from a family planning point of view - “pregnant by choice, not by chance” - Dr. Toleafoa takes this one step further.

He says that while condoms are a contraceptive that help stop unplanned and unwanted pregnancies, more importantly they help to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases/infections (S.T.D.’s/S.T.I.’s) such as H.I.V. and more importantly for Samoa, Chlamydia.

Samoa has one of the highest rates of Chlamydia in the Pacific region – with a study showing that more than 40 per cent of pregnant women below the age of 25 using health services were shown to have the disease.

“We have a very low utilisation rate of condoms, their use is not popular here,” Dr. Toleafoa said.

“I guess it is because of access - because for condoms I think you have to go to the hospital to get them.

“Unlike other countries where you can for instance stop at a gas station and pick up two or three from a vending machine.

“But through the U.N.F.P.A. they are freely available through the health services.

“Also we have the Samoa Family Health Association and the Samoa A.I.D.S. Foundation where condoms should be free.”

He said, however, another reason for the low uptake on the use of condoms was the man’s reluctance to use them.

“This is the reality – if a man has a choice of a pill or condom they will always go for the pill,” said Dr. Toleafoa.

“Here even you only have one choice and that is a condom – most men won’t even do it.”

He said however the reality was that the condom, unlike the female contraceptive pill, has been proven time and again to help stop the spread of many sexually transmitted infections.

He uses the example of Thailand – which in the early 1990s saw the countries health officials campaign for “no condom, no sex”.

This campaign in the 10 years between 1991 and 2001 saw a 90 per cent drop in the number of reported new H.I.V. infections.

It was one of the first times that the world saw the humble condom as something that could prevent diseases such as A.I.D.S. and S.T.I.s and in the long run, save lives.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (C.D.C.) in the United States supports this notion.

“Latex condoms, when used consistently and correctly, are highly effective in preventing the sexual transmission of H.I.V, the virus that causes AIDS,” the C.D.C. says.

“In addition, consistent and correct use of latex condoms reduces the risk of other sexually transmitted diseases (S.T.D.s), including diseases transmitted by genital secretions, and to a lesser degree, genital ulcer diseases.

“Condom use may reduce the risk for genital human papillomavirus (H.P.V.) infection and H.P.V. and associated diseases, such as genital warts and cervical cancer.”

For this reason Dr. Toleafoa would like to see a greater uptake in the use of condoms in the Samoan community.

“Condom use may reduce the risk for genital human papillomavirus (H.P.V.) infection and H.P.V. and associated diseases, such as genital warts and cervical cancer.”

“Especially for our chlamydia rate and especially within the age group of 18-40 year olds.

“The high rate of chlamydia is around that age group. “It peaks around 23 but its starts very significantly from 18-19.”

He said chlamydia as a disease is asymptomatic – meaning that if you have it, the likelihood of you knowing about it are slim because you are not feeling sick.

“Sometimes you get it from overseas. You come back home you feel good, you don’t feel anything and then its transmitted to your wife, so your wife has it but she doesn’t know,” he said.

“If it is left untreated you end up being infertile,” he said.

“That is the sad part about chlamydia – it makes both men and women sterile.

“Especially the women as it blocks the (fallopian) tubes – and in the men it blocks the small tubes that produce sperm.”

He said at present, his Ministry was looking at ways to combat the spread of this disease.

But without a doubt, wearing a condom for every sexual encounter significantly reduces the risk of chlamydia, H.I.V and other S.T.Is spreading in the Samoan community.