To deal with the awkward yet important situation, the health minister has urged local companies to consider manufacturing condoms, underlining that imported wellness products aren’t quite up to the task. (Source: Pixabay) To deal with the awkward yet important situation, the health minister has urged local companies to consider manufacturing condoms, underlining that imported wellness products aren’t quite up to the task. (Source: Pixabay)

Chinese goods have taken over consumer markets around the world. But as rapidly as their reach has grown, the distrust regarding the durability and quality of mass-produced Chinese products has increased as well. But it seems for men in Zimbabwe, the problem is not of the two above traits, but a matter of size when it comes to certain Chinese products — condoms. Yes, the problem is so serious that the country’s health minister had to make a formal complaint. Apparently, the concept of one size fits all is not working in this case.

According to reports, recently during an HIV/AIDS prevention event in Harare, David Parirenyatwa, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Health, said that a popular condom among youth is imported from China. However, men often complain about it being “too small”.

To deal with the situation, Parirenyatwa urged local companies to consider manufacturing condoms, underlining that imported wellness products aren’t quite up to the task. “Youths now have a particular condom that they like, but we don’t manufacture them. We import condoms from China and some men complain they are too small,” he told a group of reporters at the recent launch of a new board for the Zimbabwe Private Sector HIV and Aids Wellness Coordinating Programme (ZPSHAWP) in Harare.

As Zimbabwe has the sixth highest HIV prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa at 13.5 per cent, with 1.3 million people living with the virus in 2016, condoms are one of the most important tools in the fight against the spread of the virus in the country. “You know this region, the Southern African region, has the highest incidence of HIV and we are promoting the use of condoms; both males and females,” the minister added.

According to a paper ‘Personality and Individual Differences’ in 2012, it was said men in most South Asian countries and European nations had smaller penis than those in African countries, with men from the Republic of Congo averaging a size of 7.1 inches.

As the news of this unsatisfactory product reached China, one of the condom manufacturers vowed to look into the matter seriously and even considered rolling out new products with improved sizes. “As to the different demands from customers such as in Zimbabwe, Daxiang, as a Chinese manufacturer, has the ability and the obligation to make a contribution, so we have started to do some surveys on users’ data in the region to make preparations for future products with different sizes,” Zhao Chuan, the chief executive of Beijing Daxiang and His Friends Technology Co., told the South China Morning Post.

However, Zimbabwe is not the only country to complain about Chinese condoms. Back in 2013, another African nation, Ghana faced ‘serious health issues’ after more than 1 million condoms imported from China were faulty as they had holes and burst easily.

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