On the occasion of World AIDS Day, the Minister of Health declared that the VAT on condoms will be reduced from 7 to 5.5%.
“If the manufacturers play the game by passing on this reduction,” she explains, “the box of condomswill cost ten or twenty euro cents per box. This should both encourage young and old to protect themselves better and promote contraception,” she said.
An ineffective measure
Interviewed by the daily 20 minutes, Bruno Spire president of Aides reacted and announced very clearly that this measure is ineffective. He recalls that “there are plenty of places where you can get free condoms. It’s a drop in the bucket, we still have to take care of the sea. The real fight is to make people want to go for care and therefore to allow actors in the field to do proximity work. »
AIDS in France
Each year, more than 6,000 new HIV infections are discovered in France. People are mostly infected sexually. The National Institute for Health Surveillance (INVS) estimates that 30,000 to 40,000 people with HIV are unaware of it and that it is they who transmit the disease without knowing it.
In addition, according to the National Institute for Prevention and Health Education (Inpes), “condom use is declining among the populations most affected by sexually transmitted infections (STIs). In 2010, 34% of men under 30 said they had used it, compared to 50% in 2004.
Fight against the disease by concerning people at risk
“To fight effectively against the transmission of the disease”, recalls Bruno Spire daily 20 minutes, “we must give people the opportunity to feel that they may be affected by the risk, this requires field work and meeting the people and in particular the most exposed groups, such as gays, drug users, migrants… This is what we do through our screening actionswhich are not sufficiently funded”, he added, pointing to a real problem, the real and serious drop in state subsidies.