THE health ministry is to launch a major study of the attitudes of women and their sex partners to female contraceptives ahead of a planned new drive to win acceptance for the female condom, ministry officials have indicated.

Dr Yitades Gebre, who heads the ministry’s programme for the control of sexually transmitted diseases, told the Sunday Observer that the six-week study will start in April and will cover women who attend family health, STD and post-natal clinics as well as commercial sex workers.

The female condom, as explained in the Journal of the American Medical Association, is a thin soft, loose-fitting polyurethane plastic pouch that lines the vagina with two flexible rings:

* an inner ring at the closed end, used to insert the device inside the vagina and to hold it in place; and

* an outer ring which remains outside the vagina and covers the external genitalia.

It was first introduced in Jamaica by the private health sector in 1995, but did because of lack of consumer demand, due in part, officials say, to high price.

According to Gebre, whereas in the United States the female condom sold for US$1:00, it was introduced on the Jamaican market for between $120 and $200.

However, pharmacists here say that the product is, in fact, substantially more expensive to Jamaican women.

“The price was expensive at $600 per condom and the product was too cumbersome,” explained one Kingston pharmacist, who declined to be identified by name. “Women complained that it was uncomfortable and that it was like a bag.”

There was another problem, too, according to Gebre.

“The introduction was not systematic, and there was no baseline study done on the female condom,” Gebre said at a public discussion last week on safe sex issues.

The health ministry wants to reverse this so that women have a better knowledge of the advantages of the female condoms next time round.

“We are going to start a female condom accessibility and affordability study,” Gebre told the session at the Le Meridien Jamaica Pegasus hotel. “So by early next year we should introduce female condoms in the public sector.”

Jamaican health officials also intend to do something about price.

For according to Gebre the ministry will negotiate with pharmaceutical companies in an effort to reduce the price of the contraceptive, even as it attempts to build consumer awareness.

Gebre said a lot of women have been asking for the female condom to be made more easily available and said that the study would test acceptance levels by female users and their partners.

In the US where the female condoms were successfully introduced, feasability studies were carried out by the Family Health International (FHI) prior to its release in the market.

According to the results of the FHI study, many women liked the device and would recommend it to others. Also, women tended to accept it more than men, but discontinued use due to their partners’ objections.

Expressing the fear that Jamaican men may display similar attitudes Gebre said one of the good things about the condom was that “it could be used discreetly without the man knowing about it”.