Condom sales down by 8 percent, estimates Industry sources

Industry sources estimated condom sales are down 8% since the start of the year compared to 2018 and have fallen by a quarter over recent months.

New Delhi: In South America's capital of romance, Argentine lovers are cutting back on one important cost: contraception.

Amid a biting recession, a sharp currency devaluation and painful inflation, sales of condoms and birth control pills have tumbled, pharmacists and manufacturers say.

"The devaluation of the peso is killing me," actor and comic Guillermo Aquino jest in one viral video, in which a young man apologises to a potential partner, saying he has only one condom left until the end of the year.

"I love you, it's not you, it's the socio-economic situation," adds the humorist.

Underneath the comedy is a bleaker reality. South American's No. 2 economy is expected to shrink 2.6% this year and is grappling with 50%-plus annual inflation. The peso currency has lost two-thirds of its value against the dollar since the start of 2018, hammering imports and consumption.

Industry sources estimated condom sales are down 8% since the start of the year compared to 2018 and have fallen by a quarter over recent months.

Most condoms, or the materials needed to make them, are imported, so a weaker currency has an immediate impact on the price, up some 36% since the start of the year, said Felipe Kopelowicz, president of a condom brand.

Sales of birth control pill sales are also down — 6% for the year and by a fifth more recently, pharmacists said.

Isabel Reinoso, president of the Argentina Pharmaceutical Confederation, said price rises meant thousands of women were going off the pill. "It's around 1,44,000 women who have stopped taking contraceptives each month," she said.

Public health experts said the issue could aggravate levels of sexually transmitted disease. Emiliano Di Ilio, a pharmacist said steep inflation had caused sales of condoms and contraceptive pills in his pharmacy to fall by 20% and 25% respectively in the last two months. "People come, ask the price, and then leave."