I do not agree with Andrè Xuereb ((February 3) that the use of condoms and other similar contraceptives is the only realistic way of halting the spread of epidemics like AIDS.
If this were true, how could one explain why three countries where condoms are readily available and their use vigorously promoted - Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa - have the world's highest rates of HIV infection?
On the contrary, the most successful African AIDS prevention campaign is in Uganda, where a national "ABC" programme stresses abstinence and marital fidelity as "social vaccines" against AIDS, with condoms recommended only as a "last resort".
It is a fact that Uganda's national infection rate has been reduced from 21 per cent to six per cent among pregnant women.
As President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda puts it, he and his people refuse to believe that "only a thin piece of rubber stands between us and the death of our continent". Uganda's highest priority in AIDS-prevention, the President argues, is to "convince our people to return to their traditional values of chastity and faithfulness" - what Ugandans have dubbed "zero grazing".
I would also like to mention other alternative expert testimonies. Veteran Harvard medical anthropologist Edward Green admits that "many of us in the AIDS and public health communities did not believe that abstinence and faithfulness were realistic goals. It now seems we are wrong. The Ugandan model has the most to teach the rest of the world".
Similarly, John Richens of London's University College, an expert on sexually transmitted diseases, argues that "condoms encourage risky behaviour". And "increased condom use leads to more cases of condom failure".
"Safe sex" campaigns, Mr Richens is honest enough to acknowledge, have largely failed, in part because of these hard facts.
Again, according to Mr Xuereb, the use of condoms is more comparable to advising children to wear a life jacket whenever they go on a boat. Bringing another comparison, I would like to ask him whether any parent would ever encourage his teenage son to play single-bullet Russian roulette. Would any parent do this even if his son would assure him that playing Russian roulette is "safe" because the gun he and his friends are using has 10 chambers and only one is loaded. Would he call this "safe shooting" or suicidal behaviour?