Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) Awareness campaign
17 February 2007
February is a health reproductive month. It is during this month that
government intensifies its campaigns to highlight the ongoing risks associated
with Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs). Despite education campaigns that
our department has undertaken, more and more of our people especially the
youth, continue to be victims of sexually transmitted infections. The situation
is further compounded by the link between STIs and HIV, as it has shown that
people with STIs are more prone to HIV infection.
In an effort to create awareness and prevent STIs infection, the department
in the province has increased its condom distribution from five to nine condoms
per male who is 15 years and older per annum. This is calculated according to
the total population of males using the mid-term census as released by Stats
South Africa. In the last recent nine months, we have distributed over 20
million male condoms and just over 100 000 female condoms.
We are however not able to determine the extent of condom usage because that
becomes an individual choice. On our part we rely on educative messages that we
continuously advocate in our communities. We are also concerned about the rate
of teenage pregnancy in the province which stand at 9,99 percent of total
number of young girls between the ages of 15 and 19 and it is estimated that we
have a population of 209 857 in this category in the province. We have also
discovered that the prevalence of teenage pregnancy is more in the rural areas
than in urban centres and this can be attributed to numerous factors which may
include but not limited to; poverty where girls sleep with older people for
economic reasons, illiteracy, orphanage and lack of recreational facilities in
those areas.
To increase availability of condoms, we have what we call primary and
secondary distribution sites, where primary sites are all our hospitals and
community health centres and clinics and we have 409 health centres and 29
hospitals. Secondary distribution sites are taxi ranks, hotels, spazas, filling
stations, taverns, airports and other government institutions. We are currently
in the process of establishing more sites.
We, however, have ongoing interventions that we will continue to employ and
these include; increased condom distribution, establishment of high
transmission areas intervention sites to encourage behaviour change, increased
partner notification, establish youth friendly services in all our health
facilities and recruitment of youth as peer educators. We have also established
the youth movement of young girls between the ages of 15 and 19 under the
"Mayihlasele Izazi" project.
Our celebration which will include door to door campaign, distribution of
education material and condoms at taxi ranks and shopping malls will be held as
follows:
Date: 17 February 2007
Venue: Shatale Stadium, Bushbuckridge Municipality
Time: 08h00 to 13h00
The MEC for Health and Social Services in Mpumalanga, Mr William Lubisi,
will be a keynote speaker at the event.
Please note that media is invited.
Enquiries:
Mpho Gabashane
Cell: 082 802 4937
Issued by: Department of Health and Social Services, Mpumalanga Provincial
Government
17 February 2007
Source: Mpumalanga Provincial Government (http://www.mpumalanga.gov.za)
