From potatoes to deodorant, toilet paper and bottled beer, Cubans have come to accept chronic shortages as an inevitable part of life after more than half a century of communist rule.
Now a shrinking supply of condoms has upset residents of the Caribbean island nation and alarmed Cuban health officials who are worried by the possibility of an increase in sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies.
Pharmacies in the central province of Villa Clara began running out of condoms in the middle of last month, according to Cuban bloggers reporting on the crisis, with shortages spreading to other towns and villages, and suburbs of the capital Havana in recent weeks.
HIV HOTSPOT
One of the worst affected areas, the observers say, is the city of Santa Clara, which already has one of the highest rates of HIV infection on the island.
They say that Cenesex, the state-run Cuban national center for sex education, which is headed by Cuban President Raul Castro’s daughter, Mariela, has ordered the dwindling supplies to be allocated to areas of greatest need, including known carriers of HIV.
As a result, regular citizens visiting pharmacies in search of condoms are finding empty shelves, according to evidence collected by Havana blogger Polina Martinez Shvietsova, who conducted an ad-hoc survey.
Shvietsova said she called a number of pharmacy owners in several areas across the nation, who all told her: “We don’t have any, and we don’t know when we’ll get some.”
Other analysts warned of the health risk.
“The people in the street, [those] making love in houses of rent, godforsaken corridors, in parks, these are sources of possible chains of infection,” said one anonymous man quoted by Cubanet, a Miami-based independent network of bloggers and dissidents.
So far there has been no official reaction from the Cuban government to the reports.
BACKLOG
One local official blamed problems with supplies from China in an interview with the Villa Clara newspaper Vanguardia this month, but provided no answer about when the situation would ease.
Juan Carlos Gonzalez, director of the state-run wholesaler Ensume, which is responsible for obtaining and supplying most of the country’s government-subsidized condoms, told the newspaper there were more than 1 million condoms in the company’s warehouses and that the problem was the result of his employees being unable to meet demand.
He said Ensume had struggled to keep up with a ruling by the state’s regulatory medical agency, Cecmed, two years ago that the 2012 expiration date on millions of condoms imported from China was incorrect and that the packages had to be relabeled to this year.
Gonzalez said the employees could only repackage 1,440 strips of three condoms every day, while the demand in the province of Villa Clara alone was 5,000 daily.
Consequently, the price of a single condom has risen to about US$1.30, a day’s wages for a typical Cuban worker.
Until now, condom supplies have not been a problem in Cuba, which has always had an aggressive sexual health program and has been praised by the WHO as having one of the lowest rates of HIV/AIDS in the western hemisphere.
PROSTITUTION RISING
Yet the WHO did note in a 2005 report that HIV infections were rising because of an increase in prostitution and sex tourism on the island.
Meanwhile, the condom shortage has also affected those who use the prophylactics for non-sexual purposes.
Anglers use them to give their floats a glossy sheen which is attractive to fish, pigeon fanciers use their rubber rims to attach notes to birds’ legs and hard-up thrill-seekers fill them with cheap alcohol to smuggle into the country’s bars and nightclubs.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of