Cape Town - If you need a condom in a hurry the best place to be is in the Western Cape.
Condom distribution has increased here by more than 800 percent over a 10-year period, a survey by the SA Institute of Race Relations has found.
While in 2000 the number of condoms distributed in the province per male 15 years and older was only 4.9 on average, by 2011 this number had reached 45.7 condoms – a jump of 832.7 percent.
In Gauteng, condom distribution was measured at 0.1 per male in 2000, but in 2011 this had reached 7.9 condoms, while in the Free State the figure improved by 135 percent from 5.2 to 12.2 condoms.
In South Africa male condom distribution increased by 243.5 percent over the same period.
The survey, which comes in an annual yearbook format, looks at all social, economic and political aspects of South Africa.
The latest data show that while immunisation among children under the age of one year generally improved in all provinces, in some coverage was still inadequate. Mpumalanga only vaccinated 74 percent of its children, followed by the Northern Cape at almost 83 percent in 2011.
Gauteng outperformed all other provinces when it came to immunisation of children – improving its coverage by 77 percent, and exceeding the 100 percent target. The Western Cape improved its immunisation programme by 35.5 percent over the 10-year period to 89.5 percent by 2011.
But lead researcher Lerato Moloi noted that the country’s immunisation programme had errors in all provinces. In some cases children were counted more than once for having completed all immunisations, leading to more than 100 percent reported inoculation coverage in some provinces, such as Gauteng, which registered 114 percent.
The survey also shows that southern Africa remains the tuberculosis capital of the world. After Swaziland, which had 1 317 TB cases for every 100 000 people, South Africa had 993. This was a far cry from other developing nations such as India, which had 181 TB cases, and China which had only 75 cases of TB for every 100 000 people.
Diarrhoea remained a problem disease among children under 5. In the Western Cape an average of 94.7 children for each 1 000 under 5 had diarrhoea in 2011. Limpopo was the most affected with almost 165 children having diarrhoea, while in KwaZulu-Natal the disease affected 159.2 children for every 1000.
Researchers noted that about nine percent of the gross domestic product was spent on health. - Cape Argus