A record 45,0000 condoms will be provided to athletes at this year's Rio Olympic Games. Of these - and for the first time 100,000 are female condoms.

The previous record was 150,000 at the London Games in 2012.Although it is being dubbed "the most promiscuous Olympics in history", this move will probably make John Stover beam.He is the founder and vice-president of global health organisation Avenir Health and was in Durban at the International Aids Conference this week to promote the scaling-up of condom use.story_article_left1Stover said that although condoms were one of the pillars in the fight again HIV infection, funding and enthusiasm for the sheaths were waning.It has been estimated that between 1990 and 2015, condoms averted 45million HIV infections, but it seems they are no longer sexy."Condoms should be playing a much larger role," said Stover.The UN Population Fund commissioned Avenir to research a condom investment case " to find out what the return on investment would be if more money were put into condoms".The organisation looked at the case for benefits in three areas: preventing HIV, preventing other sexually transmitted infections and preventing unwanted pregnancies.Stover said the research involved data from 81 countries and the findings were startling.The research found that 90% condom use among high-risk groups over 15 years would avert more than 17 million HIV infections, 420 million unintended pregnancies and 700million STIs."All donors say they support condom use, but they don't realise how cost-effective they are or the devastating impact if we don't upscale like this."It's not enough to put a condom on the shelf, you need to motivate people to use them."..