DAR ES SALAAM, Dec 13 (AFP) - Twenty years after the first HIV case was diagnosed in Tanzania, anti-HIV/AIDS campaigners are surprised and disappointed by challenges to the effectiveness of condoms in checking the deadly infection.
"It is some 20 years now since the first HIV case was diagnosed in the country and still there are people, some in reputable positions, who are against the condom," the executive director of Population Services International (PSI) in Tanzania, Brad Lucas, said.
PSI, with the support of various bodies including the World Health Organisation (WHO), conducts social marketing for preventive health products like condoms, insecticide treated nets (ITNs) and contraceptives.
Lucas told a media seminar late on Thursday that it was frustrating to see some people, including senior clerics, claiming that the use of condoms promote promiscuity.
"There is no study which has so far proved that the use of condoms is linked to increased sexual activity," he said.
The PSI executive said his institution's philosophy in promotion of condoms was that: "For sexually active people of all ages, consistent and correct condom use is the best protection against contracting HIV."
"But always delay of sexual debut should be the first line of defence in promoting protective behaviour among the young people," he said.
Lucas is, however, not the only disappointed activist in the east African country.
Herman Lupogo, who is chairman of the Tanzania Commission for AIDS (TACAIDS), said Thursday that it sounded strange to hear some people and highly reputable clerics telling people that all condoms were defective.
"Some of them have gone to the extent of saying condoms have pores which can allow the HIV virus to penetrate into the human body," Lupogo told a news conference, shortly after addressing a workshop on AIDS for chief executives of public and private firms in Dar es Salaam.
He urged people to stop discouraging others, who have vowed to use condoms, in the national campaign against the killer disease.
"If you advocate abstinence or faithfulness, please don't discourage your colleagues who use condoms ... We are not talking about condoms or any other method here, we are talking about how to defeat the enemy," said Lupogo, a retired Tanzanian army major general.
Another TACAIDS commissioner, Reginald Mengi, also expressed his dismay over statements made by respectable members of society in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
"These people are disapproving condoms on the grounds that they are not effective preventive tools, with some of them even suggesting that anti-retroviral drugs should not be trusted," Mengi said.
He added: "These people have no technical knowledge of what they are saying. Their ignorant utterances contradict the knowledgeable opinions of technical experts and even that of the WHO."
There is no consensus on the figures of HIV infection rate in Tanzania, although TACAIDS puts the estimates at between 7.0 and 10 percent of the country's 34.5 million population.
Government authorities in Tanzania's semi-autonomous Indian Ocean islands of Zanzibar and Pemba put estimates of HIV infection rate at 5.0 percent.
"Some clerics in Zanzibar strongly resist promotion of condoms out of religious beliefs. Condoms are not easily available in shops and retail outlets in Zanzibar streets," Gastor Lyaruu, coordinator of Salama brand condoms promotion with PSI, said.
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