Ghana recalls 120 million faulty Chinese condoms

Ghana is recalling a shipment of 120 million Chinese-made condoms distributed to charities in the country after testing showed that they were riddled with holes and prone to breaking, an official said Tuesday.

Twenty million of the condoms have already been given out and Ghana's Food and Drug Authority is trying to get them back, said the agency's head of enforcement, Thomas Amedzro.

"We asked the NGOs that distributed them to bring them back, so they are responding," Amedzro said.

"They have holes and they break easily."

Ghana's health ministry had ordered the condoms from a Chinese manufacturer through a Ghanaian middleman. They arrived earlier this year but routine testing this month found them defective, Amedzro said.

They were freely distributed as part of anti-HIV/AIDS campaigns to charities that were working on reproductive health programmes in the country.

The board is trying to destroy all the defective condoms, Amedzro said.

HIV/AIDS prevalence among adults between 15 and 49 in Ghana is 1.5 percent, according to the United Nations AIDS programme.

(c) 2013 AFP