Another slice of life from southern Africa

Quite literally, a slice that offers hope of life: Botswana to circumcise half a million men in Aids fight.

The southern African country, which has one of the world's highest HIV infection rates, plans to circumcise 460,000 men over the next five years, after a series of studies found that circumcised men were two to three times less likely to contract HIV than uncircumcised men.

"For the public health benefits of the preventive effect of circumcision to be realised, the Ministry of Health is supposed to cover 80 per cent of eligible males in Botswana," said Janet Mwambona, a public health specialist in charge of the project.

Botswana has already benefited from the introduction of anti-retroviral drugs. Botswana's HIV prevalence among pregnant women between the ages of 15 and 24 has stayed between 35 and 37 per cent since 2001. The rate among older pregnant women was 43 per cent in 2003.

Through this latest campaign, Botswana expects to cut that rate further.

Yecch - plus the best unintentional pun ever

India has a big problem with HIV infections and AIDS, so Hindustan Latex has come up with a new public service: flavored condoms. Not wimpy fruit-flavored like Westerners are used to -- no, theirs are paan-flavored.

"We are giving the paan-flavoured condoms... it is hugely favoured by the sex workers," company spokesman S Jayaraj said overnight.

An aid group supported by the Bill and Belinda Gates Foundation, which is heavily involved in the fight against AIDS in India, told the firm that sex workers preferred it to more usual flavourings such as banana and strawberry.

"These condoms are free for distribution as the add-on will help sex workers persuade their clients to use them as a protection against HIV/AIDS," Mr Jayaraj said from the firm's headquarters in the southern city of Thiruvananthapuram.

Varieties of betel nut, tobacco jaggery and sweet and bitter pastes are mixed in a concoction called paan sold at street-side stalls across South Asia.

Aficionados chew the mixture wrapped in a leaf and then spit the red saliva onto the sidewalks or buildings that are adorned with the tell-tale stains.

So far as I can tell, paan must taste like the bottom of a well-used ashtray. Yummy!

Asked about future plans for this marvelous product, S Jayaraj had a wonderful choice of words.

"We are also thinking of commercial production of these condoms but that's for the future," he said.

"India's condom market is not ballooning despite our efforts, and that's why we want to sharpen interest with this product because usage is only five per cent in our billion-plus nation," he said.

"India's condom market is not ballooning." Tee-hee.