At best, condoms are only part of the solution to AIDS and HIV

THE Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, has a rather forthright way of warning young people about AIDS.

At a recent youth conference in Kampala, he held up two bottles of Coca Cola. One was fresh, unopened and just taken from the fridge. The other had been opened the day before. Museveni asked two youths which they would like and not surprisingly both chose the unopened bottle. In the same way, Museveni told them, keep yourselves 'closed' until ready for marriage. "Don't open yourselves up," he implored.

Listening to Tom Kitt, the Minister for Overseas Development Aid, speaking at an Aids conference in Dundalk Institute of Technology last Friday, I wondered what the Irish Government would have offered those young people. A cloth to wipe the bottle, perhaps?