Sunday Times, South Africa - Sunday, May 16, 1999

COMPLAINTS about defective Kenzo condoms, manufactured by Polar Latex, India, first came to light at the beginning of last year. Samples from two batches were sent for testing at the South African Bureau of Standards. Up to one in four was faulty. In May 1998 the Department of Health recalled these batches.

More widespread complaints were reported and on July 21 the department issued instructions to provincial health authorities to recall all of the estimated 40 million Kenzo condoms. The provinces were asked to notify the department of the location of all unopened boxes - worth R1 000 each - for collection by the supplier in August.

The department did not know how many were in circulation but a condom logistics and planning consultant who does not want to be named, said the recall netted only 10 percent of all Kenzo condoms in circulation.

The department's distribution tracking system appears chaotic. When the Sunday Times tried to pin down how many faulty Kenzo condoms were bought between 1996 and 1998 and how many were returned in the nationwide recall, this is what we were told:

The Deputy Director of Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Barrier Methods and Surveillance, Dr David Coetzee, said the total number was 21 million, of which one million were collected in the recall;

His boss, Deputy Director-General Harm Pretorius, said he did not have this information and referred the Sunday Times back to Coetzee;

At no stage did the Department of Health notify the public of the problem. "We have no policy for this," said Pretorius.

The former condom logistics consultant to the department said the number of Kenzos bought by the department was 40 million, of which 4,7 million were collected in the recall, meaning more than 35 million faulty condoms were distributed;

A spokesman for supplier Inbeco said he could not estimate how many million Kenzos he supplied to the department but claimed he collected 5,4 million in the recall.

"It was a mammoth task," said the spokesman. "If there are any still out there it means the clinics didn't respond. We got back stock that was two years old. Some of it we found in tin sheds in Mpumalanga and the Northern Province."

He blamed health authorities for their failure to handle and store the condoms properly.

"Condoms are very sensitive products. If you go into any government store you will get nothing less than 25 percent defects. This is total negligence on their part, not ours. Our company has not gone out to distribute defective condoms."

The department's contract with Imbeco and Polar Latex has been terminated. "In the past we often had to recall condoms but we don't any more because they are now batch-tested," said Coetzee.

Batch testing began in January. All suppliers are required by the terms of the tender to test batches before sending them to the department. Before January SABS inspectors, acting on behalf of the department, visited manufacturers once a year to conduct tests.

According to a damning article published in the New York Times on December 27 last year titled: Faulty condoms thwart AIDS fight in Africa, "Until last August government officials were using a procurement system that almost invited manufacturers to ship their castoffs here."

The article said "condom makers have been dumping their substandard wares in South Africa" and "people have been risking their lives on brittle, leaky or ill-fitting condoms".

The article identified Kenzo condoms and some batches of Twin Lotus from China as being "dumped" in South Africa following complaints from Cape Town prostitutes that flooded into the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce, which had handed out thousands of the contraceptives free.

When they were checked the results were shocking: as many as 48 out of 200 in some test batches broke.

The taskforce's director, Jill Sloan, said each month the organisation received about 50 000 condoms from the department, which they distributed to sex workers in the Western Cape. In October they began distributing Twin Lotus condoms for the first time. They soon received numerous complaints that the condoms were breaking. The taskforce was not given any replacement condoms and had none to distribute until Condom Week in February.

A Johannesburg business newspaper followed up the New York Times story. This generated the only public statement dated December 28 by the Department of Health on the crisis.

In it Coetzee said: "Although a formal complaints mechanism does not exist, very few complaints of poor quality have been received. On receipt of any complaint the department institutes an investigation and acts accordingly if defects are found. We do not believe that the condoms presently distributed in South Africa are of poor quality."

However, by this week Coetzee had changed his tune. "We receive widespread complaints. People complain to us all the time," he said. He stressed that Twin Lotus condoms are now tested before distribution.

The department's former consultant said: "Health-care providers didn't believe the complaints. They dismissed them by saying people didn't want to use condoms or that they were using them incorrectly." He said he "got into a lot of trouble" for speaking out about what he called "the condom fiasco".
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