Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

APSACS strategy pays off

HYDERABAD: Having realised the reluctance and hesitation of people to ask for condoms at medical stores, the A.P. State AIDS Control Society has succeeded in adopting a strategy to counter the mindset by making them available through unconventional outlets across the State and achieved significant results.

Its decision to make them available through multi-dispenser vending machines and by visible display in unconventional outlets has resulted in take-off of 70 lakh condoms in a matter of three months as it helped in making the transaction unobtrusive for the buyer by eliminating the need to ask for it.

The safe sex devices were sold in about 50,000 unconventional outlets like ‘paan’ shops, bakeries, petrol bunks, super markets, ‘dhabas’, STD booths along national highways from May this year and the response was overwhelming. The sale of condoms was in addition to the free supply by the government through hospitals and clinics, said APSACS Project Director R. V. Chandravadan.

Now the need is to take it a step further to place the vending machines or arrange for sale through outlets like canteens located on Secretariat premises, frequented by hundreds of visitors. “We are awaiting permission from the government,” he said.

Some IT companies have already installed condom vending units in their premises. Apart from social marketing, awareness campaigns through street plays and other entertainment forms on the need to use them were being taken up in high risk areas in all 23 districts like railway stations, bus stations, rythu bazaars, labour ‘addas’, bars in cities besides tribal areas and pilgrim centres.

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