InterPress News Service (IPS) - Thursday, December 4, 1997.
Ives Marie Chanel

Many brands of condoms are available in Haiti, imported from the United States or elsewhere but social factors, as well as price, also affects sales figures for each brand, health experts report.

Statistics on the rate of condom use among the general public are not available, but experts confirm that its has increased and appeared to have slowed the number of AIDS cases in Haiti.

Today, according to one pharmacist, evidence of condom use is everywhere. A drive along main roads around the capital tend to confirm this. At least twenty giant billboards display a male organ shethed in a condom, emblazoned with a logo that "this one's a winner." Advertising text extols the "Pante" brand of condom, and the benefits of condom use in general.

The distributors of the brand also pay for 660 commercials to be broadcast over 18 radio stations and 4 television channels each month - a sales strategy that has made it a top seller within 10 years. "Pante" means "panther" in Haitian Creole. But Haitians have come to think of this ferocious animal from the African bush as just a "big black cat".

The history of the brand goes back to 1989 when a non-profit group funded from abroad wanted to do something in the fight against AIDS.

"The people who started this program desperately wanted to help promote the use of condoms to fight the spread of AIDS. Since imported condoms had pictures of panthers on their packaging, they decided to also use that image but translate it into a Haitian context", said Bertrovena Grimard, sales coordinator for the group, called the Health and Information Program (PSI).

"Pante pa pran gol" ("You can't get through a Panther") and "Pante, it's cool" are some of the slogans which have helped popularize this inexpensive brand of condom.

The fact the brand costs only one-tenth the price of its closest competitor also has boosted sales.

Through a distribution network of 3500 commercial and non-profit vendors who provide access to sanitary supplies at affordable prices, the PSI has succeeded, through its social marketing techniques, in distributing more than six million condoms in the first ten months of 1997.

By the end of the year, PSI officials expect their sales to total 7.3 million, almost doubling the 4.2 sold in 1996. The poor showing for 1996 was mostly due to a cut in funding from international aid organizations.

The success of PSI is due to its use of mass marketing techniques coupled with consumer education campaigns that target sexually active adults, children, adolescents, and prostitutes with messages about healthier lifestyles, according to Daun Fest, director of PSI's local branch.

"We change the focus of our campaigns annually. We began with targeting men. Now our targets are women and adolescents. Each year we adopt a new marketing strategy. There's no doubt that condom use has had an impact on the spread of AIDS in Haiti. Just look at the monthly rise in our sales numbers. It means that people are actually using condoms, and that sexual behaviors are beginning to change," she continued.

PSI's programs in Haiti are financed to the tune of one million dollars each year by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the government of the Netherlands, and the United National Population Fund (FNUAP).

Latest figures provided by the Haitian Ministry of Health indicate that, cumulatively, there have been 101,397 cases of the acuired ummune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) since the disease firt appeared in haiti. New cases of HIV infection are numbered at 25,958 while there have been 14,958 new cases for 1997. The total number of cases of HIV infection is 324,659.

The location of persons found to be HIV positive in 1995 were 10 percent in urban areas, 4 percent rurally. The Haitian Minister of Health confirms that these rates have now stabilized.

The number of cases in children and its impact is still relatively unstudied, but what facts are known disturb health workers.

In 1995, a sampling among the 250,000 street children in Haiti, showed 4,000 tested positive for HIV, according to Michaelle Amedee Gedeon, a physician and executive director of the Ministry of Health.

Officials from the ministry report that in one pediatric hospital in Port-au-Prince, 12 of every 100 children were HIV positive. There are projections that parents dying from AIDS will create 25 to 40 million orphans between the years 1996 and 2000.

Recent studies in Haiti cited by the World Health Organization's weekly epidemiological newsletter during the first week of January, 1997 indicated that the rate of HIV infection was particularly high among pregnant women 12 to 24 years of age.

More than 47 percent of pregnant women from a poor neighborhood in the Port-au-Prince area were carriers of a sexually-transmitted disease.(END/IPS/imc/sz)

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