Chile's condom
campaign begins

The Chilean government is planning to launch its biennial condom promotion campaign in the fall but will initially limit the number of condom ads on television in light of complaints by the Catholic Church that the campaign promotes sexual activity, Inter Press Service reports. Health minister Pedro Garcia said the campaign would focus on field work and radio ads to avoid disputes with television stations opposed to the ads. In the past, Catholic university TV stations in Santiago and Valparaiso, as well as the privately owned Megavision network, have refused to air the ads. The campaign will eventually include television stations but will offer short public service pieces instead of commercials, Garcia said. There are as many as 50,000 HIV-positive people in Chile, according to estimates by nongovernmental agencies. In the past five years HIV infection has increased 29.1% among Chilean women, according to the country's National AIDS Commission. The condom campaign will seek to promote condom use to prevent HIV infections occurring during both heterosexual and gay sex. The program also will focus heavily on safer-sex messages for men and women who engage in extramarital affairs or who have multiple sex partners.