AIDS looms large again

The easiest thing would be to start laughing. The greasy rubber might be one of the reasons. Another is the strange thing on her lap: pink, smooth and harder than it could ever be in reality. Many people would feel ridiculous. Kristýna stays calm. Without hesitation, the 16-year-old girl lifts the plastic penis. She expertly presses the top of the condom at the tip with her left hand and rolls the rubber down carefully with her right. „That's it, that's good,“ says Jiří Stupka. The others nod in appreciation. Nobody laughs.

The correct use of condoms is just one of many topics in the curriculum of the secondary school for nurses in Prague 4 this January afternoon. During a so-called „anti-AIDS game“ some 50 freshmen have to show what they really know about things that become terribly interesting once they enter their teenage years. How does the female cycle work? Do birth-control pills protect me from AIDS as well? Can I get infected if I give an HIV-positive person a hug? And what shall I say if my boy- or girlfriend says it's not the real McCoy with a condom on?

The students appear to enjoy the game's different tasks – and Stupka, assistant manager for the National HIV/AIDS Programme at the National Institute of Public Health, seems happy. But people dealing with prevention have few reasons to rejoice these days. In January, authorities released the…