Maputo — A senior United Nations official on Tuesday called for the distribution of condoms in prisons, to reduce the spread of sexually transmitted diseases among the prisoners themselves, and among their communities after their release.

Brian Tkachuk, Regional Advisor for HIV/AIDS in African prisons for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), was speaking in Maputo on the second day of a seminar on prison health. He stressed that the distribution of condoms to prisoners was essential to cut the spread of HIV infection in prisons.

He stressed that this measure was required to protect not only the prisoners, but also their families and communities when they regain their freedom. The subject is not one that has been publicly discussed before, since it is an admission that inside jails men have sex with other men.

On Monday Justice Minister Benvinda Levy had touched on the same subject, pointing out that the high rates of HIV prevalence in prisons is related to unprotected sexual relations, and to the sharing of needles to inject drugs.

Tkachuk said that so far condoms are the most effective means known to halt the spread of HIV, and that sexual relations in prison are a phenomenon characteristic of incarceration across the globe. Several African countries, including South Africa, Lesotho and Burundi, have recognised this reality and make condoms available in their prisons.

The head of the medical assistance department in the Mozambican prison service, Gimo Cumba, who is the spokesperson for the seminar, said there is evidence of sexual relations not only between prisoners, but between prisoners and guards, and the friends of the guards.

"The question has been identified", said Cumba, "but in public health this involves measuring the scale of the problem. We shall hold studies to understand the problem".

The central purpose of such studies, he stressed, was to interrupt the chain of transmission, and one way of doing so was to make condoms available. However, Cumba thought that prior education was necessary, both of the prisoners and of society at large, lest people imagine that by distributing condoms in prisons the government was encouraging promiscuity.

There has been no recent study on HIV prevalence in Mozambican prisons, but the figure from 2002 was that 30 per cent of the prison population was infected. This is much higher than the prevalence rate among the general population, which is currently estimated at 16 per cent among people aged between 15 and 49.