Emergency supply of condoms underway

Uganda says it is to rollout millions of condoms, following a sharp rise in national demand for the prophylactics. Minister of State for Health, Mike Mukula, told the local New Vision newspaper that his ministry was planning to distribute an emergency supply of 20 million sheaths. The US-based Centre for Health and Gender Equity recently charged that a condom shortage faced by Uganda for the past 10 months had been fuelled by programmes promoting abstinence rather than safer sex. However, Mukula rejected the claims, noting that the government had increased its annual condom importation from 80 million to 120 million, with the support of donor countries.