I am Sabina Maritz, Human Resource Manager for Commodity Exchange. With the help of the Global Fund we are manufacturing condoms locally so that people can have access to condoms very easily. Last year we supplied government with 26 million condoms. There is a greater need for male condoms in our country. We actually applied for more funds from the Global Fund and hopefully we will get it this year. I think that we can manufacture nearly 40 million for the coming year because that will be more closely to the need in our country.

At the moment we are only manufacturing the textured condom, it is a super dotted condom and it is lubricated. The problem in Namibia with the HIV AIDS -- is actually between the age of 15 and 24, there lies our biggest problem we can believe they are very active. What is attractive to them is the apple, the strawberry and the mint flavors and the colors they love these colors like red, blue and green. It must be interesting for them to use these things and if we can make these condoms as attractive as possible we believe that they are going to use them as our government is putting in a lot of effort.

We are having the most advanced condom manufacture plant here in Namibia comparing to South Africa and other African countries. We used the Global Fund money to buy new hi-tech condom machinery.