The Female Condom

Introduction

The female condom is a relatively new product that prevents pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates a 5 percent annual accidental pregnancy rate associated with perfect use of the female condom, compared to 3 percent with the male condom. Extrapolations from a study on contraceptive efficacy suggest that perfect use of the female condom also reduces the annual risk of becoming infected with HIV by more than 90 percent among women who have intercourse twice weekly with an infected male, which is similar to the level of protection offered by the male condom.

The female condom may also prove to be an HIV protection option over which women have more control. While male latex condoms are still recommended for STI protection, many women may be unable or unwilling to negotiate male condom use with their sexual partners because of prevailing gender-related inequalities, norms, and roles that exist in many sociocultural contexts. Given the steady increase in the percentage of persons infected with HIV who are adult women and the rising global rates of HIV infection, policymakers, programme planners, community members, and other stakeholders have lobbied for the availability of HIV/STI prevention methods that may be easier for women to negotiate and control than the male condom.

Several studies have assessed the acceptability of the female condom in distinct cultural contexts and have found it to be a viable and acceptable contraceptive and HIV prevention method to high percentages of both men and women. These high levels of initial acceptance and interest in the female condom have sparked continued advocacy and programme planning efforts to expand access to the product as well as operations research to explore the dynamics of female condom use and assess its role in reducing STIs and HIV infection.