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 Amid a biting recession, a sharp currency devaluation and painful
inflation, sales of condoms and birth control pills have tumbled,
pharmacists and manufacturers say.
"The devaluation of the peso is killing me," actor and comic
Guillermo Aquino jests in one viral video, in which a young man
apologizes to a potential partner, saying he has only one condom
left until the end of the year.
"I love you, it's not you, it's the socio-economic situation," adds
the humorist.
Underneath the comedy is a bleaker reality.
South American's No. 2 economy is expected to shrink 2.6% this year
and is grappling with 50%-plus annual inflation. The peso currency
has lost two thirds of its value against the dollar since the start
of 2018, hammering imports and consumption.
Domestic sales of cars, wines and meat have dipped as wallets have
been squeezed. Industry sources estimated condom sales are down 8%
since the start of the year compared to 2018, and have fallen by a
quarter over recent months as the economic crisis has worsened.
Most condoms, or the materials needed to make them, are imported, so
a weaker currency has an immediate impact on the price, up some 36%
since the start of the year, said Felipe Kopelowicz, president of
Kopelco, manufacturer of Tulipán and Gentleman condom brands.
Sales of birth control pill sales are also down - 6% for the year
and by a fifth more recently, pharmacists said.
Isabel Reinoso, president of the Argentina Pharmaceutical
Confederation, told Reuters price rises meant thousands of women
were going off the pill. "It's around 144,000 women who have stopped
taking contraceptives each month," she said.
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RISKY ENCOUNTERS
Public health experts said the issue could aggravate levels of
sexually transmitted disease.
"When you're just thinking about getting by day to day, health is
often relegated and sexual health, which is still taboo and has
little support, even more so," said Mar Lucas, program director at
Fundación Huésped, an Argentine non-profit organization fighting
HIV.
The government does distribute free condoms in public hospitals, but
few know about it, she said.
"We know they are rarely used, misused and used inconsistently. And
so we keep having a lot of sexually transmitted infections," added
Lucas.
Argentina's Ministry of Health did not respond to requests for
comment from Reuters.
Emiliano Di Ilio, a pharmacist working in the suburbs of Buenos
Aires, told Reuters that steep inflation had caused sales of condoms
and contraceptive pills in his pharmacy to fall by 20% and 25%
respectively in the last two months.
"People come, ask the price, and then just leave," he said.
(Reporting by Lucila Sigal; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Rosalba
O'Brien)
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