JERUSALEM, Nov 17 (AFP) - Israeli Health Minister Shlomo Benizri has said condoms can be mentioned but not illustrated in the upcoming annual anti-AIDS campaign in the country, his spokesman said Wednesday.
"We will not be using images of contraceptives but the word will be on posters and in films," Yoram Malka told AFP.
Malka said pictures of condoms used in previous years had shocked many Israelis, and not only orthodox Jews.
The daily Yediot Aharonot said Tuesday that the edict by Benizri, who is a rabbi, had angered senior members of his staff, who felt it would lessen the impact of the campaign.
The campaign coincides with world AIDS day on December 1.
According to official figures, some 350 people have died of acquired immune deficiency syndrome in Israel since 1981. More than 2,050 have been infected by the virus and 605 of these have developed full-blown AIDS.
In most cases the disease was contracted abroad, in Africa or the former Soviet Union, and despite the campaigns the number of new cases each year remains steady -- there have been 216 so far this year, compared with 372 in 1998, 255 in 1997, 172 in 1996 and 171 in 1995.
However with new treatments and testing the number of deaths from AIDS has dropped from 95 in 1995 to 27 in 1996, 25 in 1997 and just five last year.
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