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South Africa: Dud Condoms Plague Country's Aids Campaign
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
23 October 2007
Posted to the web 23 October 2007
Tamar Kahn
Cape Town
The health department has ordered a second recall of defective condoms, urging hospitals and the public to return products made by KwaZulu-Natal-based company Kohrs Medical Supplies.
Following the recall in August of defective condoms made by Zalatex, the development gives the health department the great task of persuading South Africans to retain their faith in government-supplied condoms. Condoms are the cornerstone of the government's HIV-prevention programmes, and are provided free at health facilities and many workplaces.
This is not the first condom quality scandal. In 1999, the government issued condom packets stapled to instruction leaflets. The staples made holes in the condoms, rendering them useless, and an embarrassed health department was forced to issue an alert warning people not to use them. Since then, it has made a concerted effort to restore public confidence in government condoms, which it rebranded "Choice" in 2004 with new blue and yellow packaging.
The latest twist in the condom saga also deepens the scandal surrounding the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS), the quality assurance body supposed to make sure condoms bearing its mark meet World Health Organisation standards.
One of its officials was alleg-edly bribed by Zalatex to certify substandard condoms.
Although there is no evidence that Kohrs is involved in corruption, the fact that the SABS passed its substandard products raises questions about its capacity.
The government awarded the two-year tender to supply 850-million condoms to seven companies: Zalatex, Kohrs, Sekunjalo Health, Supex, Juel Health, Equity Distributors and Khusela Distributors.
At a unit price of 22c, the total contract was worth just less than R190m, according to department spokesman Sibane Mngadi.
The health department has to date retrieved 12-million of the 20-million Zalatex condoms it recalled, bearing lot numbers starting with 4308/ZLX. Yesterday, it announced a recall of the 5-million condoms supplied by Kohrs, bearing lot numbers starting with the code 6809/MED. One-million Kohrs condoms had already been quarantined, but it was unclear how many more were in circulation, said Mngadi.
It appeared Kohrs condoms had failed the SABS air-burst tests because the manufacturer had been supplied with substandard raw materials, he said. The department had not ruled out the possibility of collusion between Kohrs and the SABS, as police are investigating how a large stock of its condoms came to be dumped at Inanda, KwaZulu-Natal.
Both Sekunjalo and Juel Health, two other suppliers initially suspected of failing to meet the grade after the Zalatex story broke, had been cleared, he said.
The five companies that remained as condom suppliers to the state would be able to meet demand, he said.
Dr Francois Venter, president of the Southern African HIV Clinicians' Society, said, "It's very frustrating. Condoms are one of the few things we are getting right on (HIV) prevention."
The debacles "fundamentally undermine confidence" in the technology. "Heads should roll," he said.
Mngadi conceded the department faced "a momentous challenge" in restoring confidence in its condoms.
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It would instruct the Khomanani Campaign, its flagship HIV-prevention programme, to emphasise that correct and consistent condom use was important in preventing sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies.
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