Report on the Global HIV/AIDS epidemic

Report on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic - June 2000

vastly reduces the likelihood of HIV transmission. Among discordant couples (couples where just one partner is infected), those who always use condoms for sex have
little or no risk of the virus passing to the uninfected partner compared with couples
who use condoms sporadically or not at all.
There is wide variation in condom use around the world, and even within communities. On the whole, though, more men report using condoms than women, and both
sexes are far more likely to use condoms for sex with casual partners than with a
spouse or regular partner (see page 80).
Studies show that young people are more likely than their elders to use condoms to
protect themselves and their partners against HIV infection. Young people in all cultures and corners of the globe have proved themselves ready and willing to adopt
behaviours and attitudes that promise to stem the rampage of AIDS. This bodes well
S for the future, since it is probably easier to maintain established behaviours over time
than to change habits once they have been formed. Indeed, many young people are
beginning to insist on safe sex even at the start of their sexual lives.
In Latin America, Brazil has chalked up impressive results in encouraging condom
use for first intercourse (see page 16). So has Mexico, where a study among highschool and university students found that 42% of young men and 36% of young
women reported having used a condom the first time they had sex. Increases in condom use have also been recorded on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, following
an active HIV prevention and condom promotion campaign conducted between
1991 and 1997. Among people who had had sex with more than one partner over
the past year, condom use rose from 35% in 1991 (before the campaign) to 55% in
1994 and to 71% in 1997.
Figure 22 shows that, in several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, young,people were more likely than older people to use condoms with casual partners.
In most western European countries, more than 60% of young people currently
S/report that they used a condom the first time they had sex. In Switzerland (see Figure
S23), almost 80% of people aged 17-30, many of whom are unmarried, say they consistently use condoms with casual partners (up from less than 20% a decade ago).
F/
S In sub-Saharan Africa, condom use has increased considerably over time. In
Uganda, the percentage of teenage girls who had ever used a condom tripled
between 1994 and 1997, and more teenage girls reported condom use than any
other age group, indicating that the acceptability of condoms is growing more rap7idly among young people than among older people. Lifetime condom use among the.. men who have sex with these women also rose, more than doubling in all age groups
between 1994 and 1997.
However, the rates remain very low in some areas. A study in western Kenya found
- that 63% of unmarried men and women who had had sex in the past year never

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