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With lovers everywhere celebrating Valentine's Day today, an organization has given another designation to Feb. 14.
The National Health Information Center has declared today National Condom Day, with this week being called National Condom Week.
According to the Pharmacist Planning Service, Inc., the week is a way to raise awareness about using condoms to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.
According to the Jackson County Health Data Profile of 2003, there have been no reported cases of syphilis in the county since 1997. However, the report also said the rate in which sexually transmitted diseases occur in Jackson County is equal to or greater than Illinois as a whole, excluding Chicago.
The American Social Health Association is a non-profit organization that has existed since 1914 and supplies information on sexually transmitted diseases. Its spokesman Fred Wyand said National Condom Week brings a focus to safer sex practices.
"I can't tell you how many calls I've gotten," Wyand said. "The exposure about the whole safer sex issue really gets bumped up by weeks like this."
He said the importance of National Condom Week, especially on college campuses, is evident in statistics. He said the 15-to-24 age group accounts for about half of all sexually transmitted infections.
Wyand also said that often infections, which condoms can prevent, do not have symptoms. If they do, the symptoms will not develop quickly.
"Just because you look and feel fine and your partner looks and feels fine doesn't mean there isn't something there," he said. "You never know."
SIUC's Student Health Center is set to raise prescription birth control prices. Officials attributed the rise in price to the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which President Bush signed in February 2006.
Contraceptives such as NuvaRing, Ovcon and Estrostep will cost more than $20, while the price for condoms is around $12 for a box of 12, or $1 per condom. There are also places such as Longbranch Coffeehouse in Carbondale where condoms are supplied for free.
alicia_wade@dailyegyptian.com 536-3311 ext. 258
