6 February 2003

In the build-up to Valentine’s Day on 14 February, the Health Department has launched the Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) Week campaign to raise awareness of these diseases.

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang launched the campaign in Pretoria on Wednesday. STI Week - or Condom Week, as it is called worldwide - kicks off on Saturday, 8 February in Bergville, KwaZulu-Natal. Deputy President Jacob Zuma will attend an event at Mashishing stadium in Lydenburg, North West province on Sunday.

Tshabalala-Msimang said the department aims to increase the understanding of STIs and their symptoms, and to encourage partner notification during a time when people focused on relationships and intimacy.

"The theme of this year’s STI Week is 'Just the two of us'. Relationships are the appropriate social structure within which we should and must address STIs. South Africans should learn to trust the confidentiality between partners and between health providers and patients so that they are confident to reveal and manage their STI status," said Tshabalala-Msimang.

She encouraged people to be faithful to one partner, adding that if they failed to do so they should use condoms consistently and correctly.

"There is a greater risk of a person acquiring HIV when he or she has a conventional STI, and the presence of a genital ulcer, for example, increases the risk of acquiring HIV tenfold."

Tshabalala-Msimang also urged people to use the free condoms available at public facilities, adding that the condoms issued by the government were quality-tested by the South African Bureau of Standards.

Since April last year, the government distributed 220 million free male condoms at 166 primary sites, and one million female condoms at 200 sites. Condoms are also freely available at selected non-traditional outlets such as spaza shops (tuck shops), shebeens and from traditional healers.

Tshabalala-Msimang stressed that condom use protects people not only against HIV/Aids and STIs but also against unwanted pregnancies, abortions, ectopic pregnancies, still births, prematurity, infertility and cervical cancer.

Source: BuaNews

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