Shortage of free condoms disrupts AIDS control drive

The government may face some tough questions during the Parliament session with its ambitious national AIDS control program in jeopardy due to the lack of funds, with 15 states reporting shortage of free condoms, while five to six of them have announced they are out of stock.

Though shortages have been continuing for over a year now, states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Andhra have exhausted their stocks of condoms. Some are even short of viral load testing kits and anti-retroviral medicines.

Condoms are distributed free mainly among vulnerable population of female sex workers, long distance truckers, transgenders, drug users etc. About 32 lakh people are covered under the AIDS prevention programme, as per government estimates. Faced with a significant cut in NACO's budget, absence of global funding and part of the budget being diverted to states, the Centre seems reluctant to spend more on condoms, sources said. Thus many states have announced stock outs while some have reached out to global health agencies seeking intervention.

“There are many problems. Funding, among them, is the major one but it is linked with problems in procurement, supply chain, delayed payment to companies manufacturing condoms, drugs and testing kits,“ said Manoj Par deshi, general secretary , National Coalition of People Living with HIV in India.

Maharashtra, one of the high risk states with an HIV prevalence of over 0.40%, generates an annual demand of 3.90 crore condoms under the AIDS prevention programme.While the state has been reeling under erratic supplies since December last year, several NGOs have started reporting condom stock-outs over the last couple of weeks putting over 8 lakh vulnerable people at risk.

Punjab State Aids Control Society's additional project director Manpreet Chhatwal said, “We are working towards devising how we can generate funds without depending solely on the Centre." Left to fend for themselves, states like Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Punjab are trying to resolve the problem by borrowing from global organizations and other sources. However supplies could be met for just a few months.