Nairobi, Kenya - Kenya's quality assurance body, the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS), on Friday ordered the recall of a new brand of condom, Hot, from the local market after tests revealed that the product was leaky, PANA reported from here.

However, the Kenyan health authorities are urging the public to continue using condoms to avoid unsafe sex and protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies and other preventable sexually-transmitted infections.

KEBS officials said the tests on the Hot brand of condoms showed the product was of poor quality and could not be depended upon to protect the users.

The condom did not pass the tests...We have therefore instructed the local distributors of the condoms to recall it,'' officials from the quality assurance body said following a public outcry.

KEBS officials, however, played down the exact extent of the damage the distribution of the leaky condoms could have caused to the users.

Kenya's health ministry, through the National AIDS/STD Control Programme (NASCOP), distributes 160 million condoms annually to users through private firms as well as public institutions.

The government is responsible for the distribution of 75 per cent of the condoms used in the country through NASCOP.

However, the ramifications of a leaky Hot condom, one of the highest-priced commodities in the local market, could be far-reaching.

According to a recent study by NASCOP, Nairobi's main commercial district alone has more than 7,000 prostitutes, commonly known as commercial sex-workers, every night, who depend on safe sex to survive.

The Kenya Television Network (KTN) broke the news of the faulty condoms in the market recently and NASCOP moved in to seek the intervention of KEBS to test and verify the safety of the condoms.

KEBS officials downplayed the effects of the faulty condoms in the market, saying the new brands in the market still remained unknown and its price of Ksh250 (US $3.5) was much higher than most condoms in the market.

''This should be a lesson that the most expensive condoms in the market are not necessarily the best,'' officials from KEBS told journalists.

KEBS verification of the product showed that it could not pass rudimentary tests, which means the latex used to make it could easily pass on water.

Kenya has 1.4 million people affected by HIV/AIDS, which makes 7.1 per cent of the population, according to a survey in 2007.

By Staff reporter and agencies