Officials and experts responsible for monitoring demographics and population growth are worried about a potential decline in family planning and an increase in sexually transmitted diseases when programs providing subsidized condoms are cut next year.
As Vietnam has reached the threshold of becoming a middle-income country, international provision and subsidies of condoms would be cut, said Do Ngoc Tan, director of the Department of Population and Family Planning.
He said that there had been no offers of subsidized condoms for the country's population and family planning program after 2010.
During the 1996-2009 period, the program supplied more than 1.2 billion condoms, of which 435 million were free and 780 million subsidized by up to 70 percent. The popular types of condoms supplied often ranged from VND1,000 to VND3,000 (15 US cents) in value.
It is estimated that from 2011 to 2015, the country would need about 2.3 billion condoms, costing about $57.5 million, Tan said. But currently only 62 million of condoms had been promised by the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
Nguyen Duc Son, an official from the Ministry of Planning and Investment the country could only afford a third of the total cost for condoms each year if it had to continue the subsidy.
Tan said that people in remote and poor areas all depended on the free supply.
Government programs promoting family planning and provision of free contraceptives had previously been carried out mostly in urban areas and big cities, Tan said, where people with higher incomes were willing to pay for condoms themselves.
However, the program should have been fostered in remote and poor areas, initially to provide access to low-priced condoms, with a gradual shift towards making people pay for the contraceptives themselves.
Duong Quoc Trong, director of the General Department of Population and Family Planning said that a comprehensive program to co-ordinate, manage and supply condoms must be set up.
Communications campaigns were also needed to encourage people to shift from receiving free condoms to buying them for themselves.
Other officials called on couples to financially shoulder the burden with the government.
Huynh Cao Hai, deputy head of the Sub-department of Population and Family Planning of southern Dong Nai Province said if couples could buy the condoms themselves, the program would be effectively sustainable.
Currently, only 20 percent of people who use condoms pay for them.
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