No one expected that the reaction to empty condom dispensers on São Tomé and Príncipe would be so angry.

"I thought the country had run out of condoms - you people are fouling up too much," Palmira Torres, the owner of Alfa Restaurant, complained to Almerindo Ferreira and Desinela Barros, who work as peer educators for the Italian non-governmental organisation, Alisei.

Condom dispensers were installed throughout the archipelago off the coast of Gabon at the beginning of the year, as part of an initiative by the National Programme for the Fight Against AIDS (known by the Portuguese acronym PNLS), assisted by Alisei.

Alfa Restaurant, near the port in the city of São Tomé, capital of the largest island in the group, was one of the 376 restaurants, night clubs and stores to be equipped with a dispenser.

But a month-long interruption in supply occurred when the vehicle that distributes the condoms broke down. This, combined with a lack of personnel, left the dispensers empty in a number of districts.

"Last Sunday a young woman came in here, all nervous, looking for condoms, but there weren't any. Who knows what happened to her?" said Torres.

The restaurant, frequented by government workers, sailors and sex workers, is one of the condom distribution points Alisei considers "hot": it only takes two weeks for a bulk package of 144 to run out.

The demand for condoms, which has been triggered by the placement of the dispensers, is a new phenomenon for São Tomé and Príncipe.

The estimated 1.5 percent HIV prevalence among the country's 160,000 inhabitants is considered low for the African continent, but health officials say the number of people becoming infected is rising.

With funding from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, each establishment with a dispenser receives a monthly supply of 432 condoms, which are available to the public free of charge. Nearly a million condoms were dispensed between January and June 2008.
Life savers

Early one morning at the beginning of July, the Alisei pickup truck brought a box of condoms to the Boca Loca restaurant, the first delivery in a month.
Nuno Santos, 25, who was eating breakfast, didn't wait to finish his meal. "The life savers have arrived," he joked, taking two packets from the dispenser.

"It was hard to function without the condoms," commented the Boca Loca barman, Valdemar Paquete. "All of the clients asked us a lot of questions because of the lack of them."

Also considered a "hot spot", the restaurant is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Business reaches its peak on Saturday and Sunday nights, when people leaving night clubs in the central part of the capital make a last stop at the Boca Loca.

"The condoms are sought after by everyone, but I think that younger customers are the ones who take the most. Girls also come here to get them," Paquete told IRIN/PlusNews.

PNLS Director Alzira do Rosário is heartened by the uptake, but said it remained to be seen whether people were actually using them. Nevertheless, the health authorities have applied to the Global Fund for additional funds to ensure they keep the demand for condoms supplied.

Alisei will also begin installing condom dispensers in more restaurants, stores and night clubs this month. The health authorities intend to have 400 distribution points set up by the end of the year, with the goal of guaranteeing greater access to condoms for the entire population.

PlusNews

That's where enterprising vendors outside the busy bars and nightclubs in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, turn lifesavers. Steve Kielu, a street trader with a spot outside The Wallet, a club in downtown Nairobi, has added condoms to the usual cigarettes, chewing gum, batteries and assorted handy items.

"Some people come around and pretend - they first buy sweets and then a while later they ask if I have any condoms as well," he said. "This is how I came to stock condoms."

"I target both men and women, but men are my customers more often than women. I know that I have helped them instead of them going away without," Kielu told IRIN/PlusNews.

Psys, another popular club in the Nairobi suburb of Lang'ata, keeps condoms behind the bar. "This is a highly social place where two consenting adults will walk in together, or meet, and chemistry is all over the place," said Martin, a Psys bartender.

"We have a variety of condoms on display for sale. As much as it is important to carry condoms around, not everyone carries condoms in their wallets or handbags, so usually you will find them at our counter," he added. "What is worse, contracting HIV or the embarrassment of asking for a condom over the counter?"

Various NGOs are also working to make condoms more accessible. "What we encourage is the availability of condoms in high-risk areas, such as the highway bars, lodgings, casinos and clubs," said Chris Wainaina, brand manager of "Trust" condoms at Population Services International (PSI), a global non-profit social marketing organisation.

Wainaina said PSI was conducting training sessions for bar owners, club bartenders and hotel lobby staff to make condoms more widely available and help them deal with requests for condoms sensitively.

"Condoms are even being sold by taxi drivers at night to their clientele. They work very late at night and are parked strategically in high-risk areas," he noted.

Jude Musyoka* a student at the United States International University in Nairobi, appreciates the convenience of it all. "Usually I carry my own stash [of condoms], but the problem is you don't always plan these things, so when you have met a nice girl outside school, the bartender or the street vendor will always come in handy," he said. "I just don't want to wake up in the morning and have to worry about what I should have done."

A cultural shift

Young men and women in the capital seem to have adopted the condom as a routine part of their sexual relationships, at least in the early stages.

A 2007 study by Infotrak Research & Consulting, in conjunction with a local magazine for young women, Eve Girl, found that 54 percent of young women used condoms "persistently", while only 24 percent never used them.

Anthony Omondi*, a young Nairobi executive, attributed the condom's growing popularity among urban youth to the influence of Western culture, and the publicity the prophylactic has received in recent years.

"Kids are taught about condoms in school, there are billboards all over town with famous people promoting them, ads on TV, so they are now very acceptable ... in fact, they're cool," he added. "And since you can get them everywhere and they are either free or very cheap, there is no excuse not to use one."

According to the National AIDS Control Council, Kenyans use an estimated 120 million condoms every year, but this does not include purchased condoms. A three-pack of condoms costs, on average, about 10 Kenyan shillings [US$0.16].

It is now illegal to encourage the use of condoms in southeast Nigeria’s Anambra State. The state government has also banned the advocacy and distribution of other forms of contraceptives including IUDs (intrauterine device) and any other “un-natural” birth control.

“Instead of teaching children how to use condoms to enjoy sex they should be taught total abstinence,” the state commissioner for health, Amobi Ilika said when announcing the measures in late March at the state capital, Awka. “The use of condoms has greatly encouraged immorality,” he said.

Many sociologists as well as family planning and AIDS support groups disagree. “I don’t think it's the right step," public affairs analyst Alphonsus Ofodile said. "Even if you ban the use of condoms, people will still have sex. So why would a responsible government want to discourage safe sex?”

More than 3 million people - 3.9 percent of the adult population - are living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria. The rate is rising by around 300,000 people a year, according to a 2006 estimate by the joint UN programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

Condoms are openly available throughout Nigeria partly because the federal government, in partnership with family health organisations, has programmes to distribute and sell them. The programmes also produce public announcements on local radio and billboards advocating for the use of condoms.

Many religious groups around the country also back condom use, having recognised that messages urging abstinence have failed to yield the desired results.

The population of Anambra State are not known for habouring particularly fundamentalist beliefs but the ban may have been designed to appeal to local evangelical groups.

For Ofodile, the ban is just a way for the state government “to score a cheap political point". Anambra State has a history of political instability and violence and is now making “a desperate attempt to uphold morals”, he said.

Abortion

Besides making advocacy for contraception illegal, commissioner Ilika also railed against abortion. “Abortion is the greatest crime,” he said. “[All fetuses] must be allowed to live no matter the circumstances that led to the pregnancy, even rape.”

He added that medical practitioners in the state will face stiff penalties if they are caught carrying out abortions or any ‘anti-life’ activities. “The state government will withdraw the license of any medical personnel who flouts this directive and any hospital will be closed down.”

The commissioner did not specify how the state would punish shops and pharmacies caught selling condoms, or individuals caught using them.

Bars, restaurants and stores in the archipelago of São Tomé and Príncipe now have a new attraction: small brown wooden boxes containing 144 condoms each, placed in highly visible locations. Condoms have traditionally been distributed at healthcare centres, but under the government's new prevention campaign they are gradually becoming more accessible.

"This is the way we came up with for condoms to be brought closer to São Tomeans," said Alzira do Rosário, coordinator of the National Programme for the Fight Against AIDS (known by the Portuguese acronym PNLS). "You don't have to ask anyone for anything - if you need one, all you have to do is take it."

The archipelago off the coast of Gabon, with some 160,000 inhabitants, has a seroprevalence of 1.5 percent, considered low on the continent. Nevertheless, health officials are concerned about the growing epidemic on the island.

"With every day that goes by, the situation becomes more complicated. AIDS is no longer a joke," warned Ângela Costa, coordinator of the Office for the Promotion of Women and Family at Manuel Quaresma Dias da Graça Costa Hospital, in a condom use promotion campaign.

Surprise

The initiative was launched by the PNLS in December 2007 on the island of Príncipe, where the boxes were placed in 34 strategic locations. The goal is to distribute 400 condom dispensers with the assistance of Alisei, an Italian non-governmental organisation (NGO). By December 2007 they had delivered 230 on the two islands.

In 2007, with financing from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, Alisei carried out the first-ever survey of the sex industry in São Tomé, interviewing a total of 120 people. Among the findings was a need for more places where condoms could be obtained, especially those open at night.

On a December afternoon, a pickup truck from Alisei entered the Benga neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city of Neves, 27km from the capital, São Tomé, with the condom boxes. One of the locations was the popular restaurant, Complexo Escala, where a poster advertising "Free condoms available here" was placed at the entrance.

The poster took a group of customers entering the restaurant for lunch by surprise. "This is great. Now, if we get ourselves a prostitute, we have condoms just one step away," public servant Leovigildo Bragança, 54, said jokingly. Restaurant owner Hélder Menezes told IRIN/PlusNews that he participated in the project "because this way I'm contributing to the fight against AIDS".

Alisei coordinator Mariangela Reina believes the initiative will also encourage women to become condom users. "Young people, especially, are embarrassed to go the pharmacy or health centre to get condoms. That's where the idea for the condom dispensers came from," she said.

The project has the support of the United Nations Population Fund, the US-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the São Tomé and Príncipe Federation of NGOs.

PNLS data from 2005 indicates that 95 percent of the population has knowledge regarding condom use, but only 45 percent use them in their sexual relations. The initiative hopes that by making condoms more readily available, this behaviour will change.

Condom sales in South Africa have climbed by as much as 55 percent in the last year, pointing to increased condom usage - but does this mean that behaviour has changed?

Health officials and researchers said it was too soon to tell if HIV-prevention messages had really filtered through and were having the impact they were supposed to have on people.

Dave Glass, general manager of ACDOC, which distributes a range of condoms, including the upmarket Contempo, commented: "We've seen a 50 percent increase in sales, which is probably a combination of marketing activities together with the AIDS message finally filtering through to consumers."

Jo Giles, spokesperson for competitor Durex SA, said the company had experienced about 35 percent growth in sales.

Glass said a combination of messaging, marketing and scandal could be pushing up sales. In late August 2007, the South African government recalled more than 20 million of its Choice condoms, which are distributed free, after reports that a testing manager at the South African Bureau of Standards, the body responsible for quality assurance, had accepted a manufacturer's bribe in return for certifying defective condoms.

Improved sales of ACDOC's lower-priced Lifestyle brand (US$1.50 for three) could be a sign that people were willing to pay for protection in the wake of the government's free condoms being recalled: "Maybe people are sceptical of free giveaways and are looking to trade up," Glass said.

Director of the non-governmental organisation, Centre for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation (CADRE), Dr Warren Parker, said the recall threatened to undermine what had been a strong condom prevention campaign by government.

Sibongile Vilakazi, research manager of the Society for Family Health (SFH), a social marketing organisation, said studies showed that about 80 percent of South Africans were using condoms, but only 62 percent were using them consistently.

The catch?

For some, like hair stylist Mapitso Hlaodi, 27, the scandal marked the end of government condoms on the bedside table. "I used them all the time due to the fact I thought they were stronger because they were free. I mean, I'd been using them for three years and only two broke," she said. "No more."

According to David Nowitz, marketing manager of SFH, the loss of confidence in the government's prophylactics is also thought to have partially pushed up sales of the Lovers Plus and Trust condoms it distributes by 55 percent last year.

Repackaging Lovers Plus, combined with a TV campaign launched about a year and a half ago, also affected SFH's lower-priced Trust condoms, translating into 50 percent sales growth for this brand in the first half of 2007. With such a high base, Nowitz said, "In the second half of the year, we expected to see a growth of about 30 percent but we grew by 55 percent."

He attributed the unexpected growth largely to people looking for alternatives to government condoms as a result of the recall. SFH sold about 31 million condoms in 2007, about 2 million more than it had anticipated.

Nowitz and health department spokesperson Charity Bhengu both cautioned that it was too early to tell whether increases like these were due to behaviour change, or whether or not they were the very profitable fallout - for some - of a scandal.

In a market square just outside the town of Kassala, near the border with Eritrea in eastern Sudan, every plastic chair is filled and there is standing room only when the two men come on stage to perform their songs and skits about HIV and AIDS.

In much of the African continent such events have become commonplace, but they are still a novelty in this region of Sudan, where people have only really begun to talk about AIDS in the last few years.

The event was a first for audience member Yassir Musa, 29, who also inspected the informational display set up in a tent near the stage. "Before this, I just knew people should avoid sexual contact outside marriage," he said. He said he knew nothing about condoms.

Another audience member, Ali Awad El Karim, 55, said he believed people become infected with HIV because of illiteracy. He knew about condoms, but did not approve of them. "Condoms themselves can transmit HIV," he said, adding that people could also get HIV from sharing toothbrushes.

One old man in a traditional white turban and jalabia pushed his way out of the small crowd gathering in the tent: "I don't know anything and I don't want to know," he said.

Such attitudes and the low level of knowledge about HIV/AIDS were not surprising, said Connie Shealy, an HIV advisor with GOAL, an international humanitarian organisation running an HIV programme in Kassala. "Sudan is where a lot of countries were 10 years ago." Although the resources and government assistance allocated to AIDS efforts has increased in recent years, she said, "we can't go in with guns blazing."

Condom distribution, for example, a routine element of AIDS awareness events in most countries, would not take place at the market. In fact, condoms were unlikely to be mentioned.

In this region, conservative even by the standards of a country governed by sharia (Islamic law), talking about condoms is viewed by many as tantamount to encouraging "illegal" sexual activity. According to Inas Mubarak, assistant HIV coordinator with GOAL, information about condoms is only given at training workshops for peer educators, who are drawn from high-risk groups like students, soldiers and policemen.

Even after training, some peer educators have difficulty talking about sexual modes of transmission and are ambivalent about condoms. Mohammed Zain Elabdeen, a peer educator in the local police service, said he taught other policemen how to use condoms but did not provide them unless he was asked. "My role is awareness," he said. "If you just hand condoms out, it's like you're promoting sex."

The first step in most awareness-raising efforts is to approach local religious and tribal leaders. Without their endorsement, educational messages are unlikely to have any impact, said Musa Bungudu, country coordinator for UNAIDS in Sudan.

"The imams [Muslim religious leaders] have accepted to talk about HIV. They won't promote condoms, but they've agreed they can be promoted through the health system. It's not seen as appropriate for anyone outside the health system to distribute them," Bungudu said.

Local leaders are more likely to advocate marriage as an HIV-prevention strategy. Sex outside of marriage is prohibited in Islam, so simply encouraging religious fidelity is often considered an adequate response. "If people are committed to Islam, they'll prevent themselves from getting HIV," said Sheikh Faki Mohamed Alamin, one of the few imams in Kassala willing to talk about HIV.

But in this area, where poverty is widespread, the high cost of dowries and weddings makes marriage unaffordable for many young men. According to Ali Mohammedeen, who runs a network for local community-based organisations, such men are more likely to engage in "risky behaviour".

Awareness-raising efforts also have to take into account that women in eastern Sudan tend to stay close to home and rarely mingle with men in public. Indeed, to an outsider, the lack of women in the audience at the market is striking. Mubarak said the best strategy for reaching women with information about HIV and AIDS would be door-to-door campaigns.

The staff at GOAL have learned that even the design of awareness-raising posters has to take into account local attitudes to gender. "We had to change a poster that showed men and women mixed together because of feedback from the community," said Shealy. "Now the men are on one side and the women on the other. We call it the 'Kassala poster'."

Segregation of the sexes is even more pronounced in the rural areas of Kassala State. High levels of illiteracy and the need to develop educational materials in local languages add to the difficulty of talking about HIV in the countryside.

So far, awareness efforts have mainly been confined to urban areas. "You have to start somewhere, and urban populations are generally more at risk and easier to target than rural," said Shealy. "What needs to happen now is that [awareness-raising] needs to go beyond the urban peripheries."

In her bright orange clothing, South African Riana Jacobs, 31, stands out from the crowd at the recent International Consultation on Islam and HIV/AIDS, organised by the charity, Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW), in Johannesburg, South Africa.

She has been HIV-positive for the last 10 years and is not intimidated by the audience of Muslim religious and academic leaders, mostly men. When she declared her status in 2004, compassion from her religious leaders was hard to come by.

"People accept it when it's not their problem," she said. "But leaders don't want to see that seroprevalence is increasing among Muslims."

This picture of intolerance is slowly changing as more initiatives throughout the world educate imams - Muslim religious leaders - about HIV and AIDS, so that they can teach their congregations.

"The imams are more effective than television or the radio in certain areas because of their authority and influence ... imagine the impact if all imams dedicate time in their sermons to talk about HIV," remarked IRW president Dr Hany El Bana at last week's meeting.

According to UNAIDS, although prevalence in Islamic communities is relatively low, it is growing in countries like Algeria, Iran, Libya and Morocco.

In Mozambique, where a quarter of the population is Muslim, 19.8 percent of the adult population is living with the virus; in Guinea Bissau, where 4 in 10 of the country's 1.4 million inhabitants follow the Islamic religion, the national seroprevalence rate is 3.8 percent.

Data from the National AIDS Commission in Indonesia - the world's most populous Islamic country, with 225 million inhabitants - show that HIV cases have been reported in almost all its 33 provinces, mainly among intravenous drugs users.

Allah Yar Qadri, once an imam and now a consultant on community development, HIV/AIDS and Islamic issues in Malawi, warned that imams could not afford to distance themselves from the issue. "If the imams remain silent, others will take the lead and speak to our communities, but far from Islamic principles."

Do female condoms exist?

In Muslim communities, HIV has been associated with infidelity or promiscuous behaviour, so many people have viewed infection as a well-deserved divine punishment, but this perception is slowly being replaced by a more tolerant attitude.

An effective change in mentality would require not only education about the pandemic, but also more information on sex and risky behaviour, which scholars do not always have. "I'm sorry, but do female condoms exist?" asked Amna Nosseir, a specialist in Islamic philosophy who hosts a television programme in Egypt.

To a certain extent the lack of knowledge can be traced back to the madrassas (Islamic schools), which are reluctant to deal with more current themes. "The curriculum in the madrassas needs to be revised," Qadri said. "Islam is a religion in progress, so it's necessary to incorporate contemporary aspects into curricula, and sex is an important chapter of the Quran."

Economic factors also matter. In Malawi, for example, many imams are contracted by a committee of community businessmen, so they may not always be able to preach about what they see as most pertinent. "If the imam talks about HIV and AIDS without the committee's approval, the next day he could lose his job," Qadri explained.

Back to school

Some Islamic countries are solving the problem by educating imams about HIV/AIDS. Sheikh Mohamed Bashir Joaque, who was born in Sierra Leone and lives in the United Kingdom, is part of the African Muslim Communities Campaigns Against HIV/AIDS initiative, and the growing success of his courses in London have led to the creation of a manual on HIV/AIDS for religious leaders.

He says the secret is to transmit information gradually, from an Islamic perspective. "We need to adapt. We don't start talking about condoms right from the beginning. We emphasise that the best thing is still abstinence before marriage and faithfulness during marriage," he explained.

"But we also say that we're all human and can all have moral lapses, and if this happens, condoms should be used. If we're too direct, they leave."

It is mandatory that Zambia's hotels, lodges and guest houses stock at least two Bibles in each of their rooms, but it is rare to come across condoms or even condom-vending machines, despite many of these establishments being used by commercial sex workers and their clients.

About one in five sexually active people, or 1.6 million of Zambia's population of 10 million, are infected with HIV/AIDS; health activists are advocating that condoms, like Bibles, should be distributed free of charge in hotels and other venues offering commercial accommodation.

This strategy is likely to meet fierce opposition in a generally conservative country, where sex is not openly discussed and more than 80 percent of people claim to be practising Christians or, at least, combine elements of Christianity with African-based religious practices.

"We are seriously calling on the government to come up with a policy to compel all hotels and lodges to start distributing free condoms in all rooms, just as Bibles are freely distributed. It must be a matter of policy as a prevention measure, and all defaulting operators should not be given operating licenses. It's long overdue, and it must be done," Nkandu Luo, an HIV/AIDS consultant and former health minister, told IRIN/PlusNews.

"I have been interacting with so many sex workers and they all tell me the same story: they are not taken to residential homes every time they are picked from the streets, they are either taken to guest houses, hotels or lodges. So, by having condoms in these places, it will provide safer sex practices," Luo said.

Christian nation

Former president Frederick Chiluba declared Zambia a 'Christian Nation' in the early 1990s, and ever since then the promotion of condoms as an effective measure for reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS has met with government resistance.

Chiluba's vice-president, Godfrey Miyanda, once banned all condom advertisements on television, and while many religious leaders have accepted condoms as a tool for the prevention of the disease's spread, condoms are still commonly equated with "selling" and "advertising" illegal sex.

"It's not only immoral but also ungodly to suggest that public places - worst of all, hotels - should be littered with condoms. That's more or less like saying, 'here is a weapon for protecting your physical life, so use it to sin against God and destroy your spiritual life'," Peter Chisanga, a pastor at Calvary Highway, an evangelical church in the capital, Lusaka, told IRIN/PlusNews.

"We need to teach people that only God can save a person's life, and even protect someone from contracting HIV, not a condom. The only condition He [God] requires of us is to be holy so, for us, abstinence by the grace of God is the message."

It is not uncommon to find religious pamphlets, often printed by Christian organisations based in the United States, at hotels. At one Lusaka guesthouse, an IRIN correspondent recently found a flyer in his bedside table, warning that "AIDS is the judgement of God for sex perversion", and "God did not allow the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to get by for their sins of homosexuality, and neither will He let America or any other nation get by."

In spite of widespread religious opposition to condom promotion, President Levy Mwanawasa's government has acknowledged that a culture of condom usage has not taken root, and this needed to change.

Zambia's deputy health minister, Lwipa Puma, told local media recently that "condom usage is still very poor in Zambia, especially the female condom ... This surely calls for more advocacy and promotion for its use."

Condom shortages

Clementine Mumba, a spokesperson for the Treatment and Advocacy Literacy Campaign, an HIV/AIDS prevention advocacy group, said perceiving the promotion of condoms as immoral was counterproductive to the country's fight against HIV/AIDS.

"Our people are dying, and they will continue dying unless we change our attitudes towards issues of sex. Let's not pretend; we all read the Bible as Christians, but it's also true that people visit hotels for different reasons - some of them specifically go there for sex," she told IRIN.

"At least if they [hotel proprietors] can't put condoms in the rooms, there should be a way of having them displayed in bathrooms and lavatories, because we certainly need them for our own survival," said Mumba, who has being living with HIV/AIDS for the past five years.

Sylvia Eneke, of the Hotel and Catering Association of Zambia, an umbrella body for hotels and other members of the hospitality industry, said measures to ensure that more people had access to condoms in their establishments were being hampered by the unavailability of free condoms.

"We do not have a policy, per se, to distribute condoms in our facilities, but it's something that we have also realised we need to do, and some of our members have actually started putting them [condoms] in all public bars at a small fee. The problem is that there are very few organisations willing to supply free condoms, and many clients have their own preferences for condom types," Eneke told IRIN.

The recall of 20 million condoms by the South African Health Department due to safety concerns has dealt a blow to the country's prevention programme.

An estimated seven million condoms have been compromised by a corruption scandal in which faulty condoms were allegedly certified as safe; the government chose to recall all 20 million prophylactics produced by the company under investigation.

Health department spokesperson Sibani Mngadi maintained that 90 percent of the 400 million condoms the government distributes for free each year were of good quality.

But activists worry that the news of the recall has dented public confidence in the health department's long-fought condomisation campaign, in a country in which over 16 percent of adults are estimated to be HIV-positive.

Those concerns were shared by people IRIN/PlusNews spoke to in one of Johannesburg's busy shopping malls.

"I don’t like the government condoms. I don't think they're safe. I'd rather buy condoms from the garage than get them from the clinic, I just don't think they're safe." Cindy Ndlebe, 21, personal trainer

"I used to use them all the time due to the fact I thought they were stronger because they were free. I mean, I'd been using them for three years and only two broke. No more. I was using them because they were easy to access, they're always there." Mapitso Hlaodi, 27, hairstylist

"I saw it in the paper Monday or Tuesday and said, 'Oh my God, let me check my condom.' And my condom was Choice [the affected brand] and it means I'm in danger, but I just continue because I have no choice. I've been using them for years." Monty Mawele, 47, security guard

"I don’t think the government has a response. I don't think the government actually knows what it wants to do or what its story is with the whole HIV/AIDS issue." Natashe Thorp, 22, student

"I think the government is right, it's good for the people. One thing for sure, the government cares for the people." Gift Ndlovu, 25, waiter