The Director General of Public Health of the Ministry of Health, Pedro Gullón, has announced this Monday the launch of a program through which people between 16 and 22 years old will be able to obtain condoms for free in pharmacies, an initiative that, as he has underlined, "changes the literature" and configures them as "a right" through pharmacy offices.
During the celebration in Madrid of the "Awareness and Update Day on Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs)", organized by the Ministry of Health, he explained that the purpose of these preventive measures is to "try to turn them into a right" and integrate them into "daily life", so that they are perceived as "something that is there" and thus normalize their use among the young population.
To achieve this, he detailed that "for this, we are initiating a program of gratuity" and clarified that offering condoms at no cost "is not so novel", but it is to articulate it through the network of pharmacy offices. In this regard, he highlighted the cooperation with the General Council of Official Colleges of Pharmacists (CGCOF), key for the distribution of preventive material.
Gullón indicated that there is a "conceptual difference" with respect to previous initiatives, since the purpose is to reach, in a "first approach", "three million people throughout Spain", guaranteeing that condoms are "accessible in pharmacies". In his speech, he gave the example that "every 'x' amount of time, every month, you are entitled to a box of condoms".
As he explained, "we make a purchase of condoms for all of Spain" and it is the CGCOF that is responsible for distributing them among community pharmacies, which allows "a turn in the narratives around the condom" and consolidates it "as a right". Furthermore, he emphasized the "added value" that "this is done in a place that can have a central importance" in "the prevention of STIs and, in general, in the improvement of health and health protection".
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