A Thai bank is pitching into the battle against HIV/AIDS and handing out condoms to customers too shy to get them at the shop, Reuters reports.
Kasikorn Bank launched the "Condoms for Confidence" campaign at 600 branches nationwide and said it would start giving out the sheaths, branded K-Condom and K-Excellence.
"HIV/AIDS is returning to Thailand since the government awareness campaign started 20 years ago has fizzled out," said a bank spokesman who declined to be identified. "We want the teenagers to be aware of the problem."
Despite a tenfold plunge of overall new HIV/AIDS cases from 15 years ago, the health ministry has said it was concerned about the numbers of teenagers and homosexuals still being infected.
Disease Control Department chief Thawat Suntrajarn said embarrassment about buying condoms and ignorance in using them were the main causes of the new cases.
"Research papers from all sorts of agencies have a consensus that many condom users are embarrassed to buy condoms from counters," Thawat told Reuters.
"Women who buy condoms from convenience stores always get a strange look from people, so condom handouts are a good way to avoid such embarrassment."
New HIV/AIDS cases in Thailand, once praised by international health agencies for its aggressive campaign to tackle the epidemic, had fallen to 13,000 in 2006 from more than 100,000 a year in early 1990s, Thawat said.
