George Pell is wrong - using condoms does stop the spread of HIV.

CARDINAL George Pell's Easter message that condoms have contributed to Africa's AIDS problem by encouraging promiscuity is not consistent with the evidence, and is dangerous.

Pell suggests that condoms have caused an epidemic of HIV in Thailand and the lack of them has protected The Philippines. This is not true. HIV rates and patterns of spread vary greatly between and within Asian countries, depending on many characteristics, and varied strategies are needed in response.

The virus has spread little in the Philippines where most men are circumcised — which greatly reduces the chance that HIV will spread in a population — and buying sex is not common. In any case, Filipino sex workers have had high rates of condom use, which has protected them from HIV.

In Thailand, the first Asian country to experience rapid spread of HIV, it has long been a social norm for men to buy sex. Thailand's dramatic success in turning around the spread of HIV provides evidence for the effectiveness of condoms. In 1993, the HIV infection rate among 21-year-old army conscripts was just under 4 per cent nationwide and as high as 8 per cent in the north.