How can Women be empowered to bring HIV down in east Africa?

This episode documents the highly successful female condom, used throughout the developing world to protect women from HIV infections.

In most of Africa HIV is a heterosexual disease affecting women and their newborns as well as men. The HIV pandemic is scarcely contained and there are still over 24 million infected people in SubSaharan Africa alone. There simply are not enough drugs and enough funding to provide for all those infected, and those who do not receive treatment, die, many thousands every day.

Despite the horrifying statistics, a Chicago-based for-profit firm, the Female Health Company, works on HIV prevention for women in over 140 emerging economies. Their product is the female condom, a product virtually unknown in the United States, but which is extremely effective in protecting women from unsafe sex and HIV infections. The condom is globally distributed through international organizations and social marketing groups. In 2015 they distributed over 61 million condoms.