PPASL & Partners Celebrate International Condom Day 2023 in Makeni

By Sahr Eric Dumbar Matturi

International Condom Day is celebrated on February 13 every year. The holiday is celebrated before Valentine’s Day in an effort to remind people that the condom is one of the best and most convenient ways of preventing pregnancies and Sexually Transmitted Infection.

Planned Parenthood Association of Sierra Leone (PPASL) with support from UNFPA joined other partners (UNAIDS, AHF, NAS, CARE, , MOYA and MTHE) in commemorating this year’s condom day.

The celebration was done in Makeni and Magburaka from the 10th-14th February 2023. The week-long celebrations encompass a Press Conference, Football Match, Marathon, Condom Fashion Show and National Dialogue for University Students. During the various engagements, condoms were distributed, HIV test carried out and certificates and prizes were awarded to winners in the various activities mentioned.

Sierra Leone has a mixed, generalized, and heterogeneous HIV epidemic with a high concentration among the key populations. DHS country reports show that the relatively small epidemic has grown steadily from 0.9%, 1.5%, 1.5%, and 1.7% prevalence in 2003, 2005, 2013, and 2019. Currently, six districts have a  prevalence higher than the national average. The IBBS report shows that HIV prevalence in key populations is considerably higher than in the general population: 11.8% among female sex workers, 4.2% among men-who-have-sex-with-men, 4.2% among people who inject drugs, 5.2% among transgender people and 3.7% among people in closed settings. It is also worth noting that Sierra Leone has one of the highest rates of Teenage Pregnancy in the world. Three in every ten teenage Sierra Leonean girls are pregnant, according to UNICEF (2015 figures) and 28% of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 have children (UNFPA, 2019).