Eldoret: Sex Workers Resolve to Using of Pills Due to Shortage of Condoms

Commercial Sex Workers in Eldoret town are shifting to the use of pills as opposed to condoms as a way of coping with the ongoing shortage of condoms in the country.

Eldoret Sex Workers Alliance Director, Alice Saina has stated that more than 3000 commercial sex workers in Eldoret are risking their lives in entertaining their clients without condom protection.

According to Saina, the shortage of condoms has posed a great threat to the commercial sex workers fraternity since they are the commodities they normally use for protection hence leaving the workers to only use pills for unguaranteed protection.

“Now the girls are opting to go for preps that are not that safe because they only help in the prevention of Aids but they do not protect the girls from other STIs and unwanted pregnancies unlike the condoms which are all round protective”, stated Saina.

Saina has added that as an organization they are putting in place all measures to appeal to the government to provide condoms but their efforts have hit a brick wall noting that other mainstream organization feels like they are a threat.

“The county government is trying to block us because when go and complain to them to supply the condoms to us, they say that we do not have an NSL code given to us by the Ministry of Health so that we can access commodities from them”, added Saina.

According to Dr. Samuel Kinyanjui, Executive Secretary in Aids Healthcare Foundation (AHF), Kenyans need at least 455 million condoms per year but the government is only capacitated to distribute 150 million condoms only.

Sentiments by Dr. Kinyanjui had it that the government should intervene in the ongoing shortage of condoms since it may escalate the spread of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) especially HIV/AIDS as well as leading to unwanted pregnancies.

Despite the continuous efforts by the government to control the spread of HIV/AIDS, statistics from National Syndemic Disease Control Council (NSDCC) have indicated that Kenya has been experiencing 32,000 new infections per year with 42% being from the youths aged 15-24 years.