ZIMBABWE-HEALTH: Drying Agents Linked to STDs, HIV

By Mercedes Sayagues Reprint | | Print |

Mercedes Sayagues and Josephine Masimba

HARARE, Oct 16 1996 (IPS) - With a knowing smile, the traditional medicine vendor in Mbare market here dispenses red, white or yellow powders at about one U.S. dollar per tablespoonful.

Relied on by many Zimbabweans to enhance sex, the powders and the herbs they are derived from are now being linked by researchers to the high incidence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) and cervical cancer.

The herbs, 34 of which are identified in a 1995 study by Agnes Runganga and Prof. Jonathan Kasule of the University of Zimbabwe’s Obstetric and Gynaecology Department, are generally known as ‘mushonga wekupfeka’ (‘medicine for insertion’ in Chishona, the main indigenous language here) or wankie.

Runganga, a sociologist and psychologist, attributes the use of these substances — which cause dryness, heat and tightness in the vagina — to the users’ health and emotional concerns.

Drying the vagina eradicates genital secretions which are widely considered to be unclean or even dangerous, according to Peter Sibanda, Secretary for Research and Education and National Aids Co-ordinator of the Zimbabwe Traditional Healer’s Association (ZINATHA).

And, according to Kasule, some women fear that their husbands would suspect them of having sexual relations with other men, should they find their vaginas moist.

Runganga explained that wankie increases friction and heat during coitus and thereby, it is widely believed, enhance male pleasure, an important consideration in this society which accepts male promiscuity and polygamy.

“I began using wankie when my husband got another woman. I would go home to Mutoko (northern Zimbabwe) and bring wankie. Now I don’t use it anymore, I’m too old,” said a 45-year-old domestic worker who identified herself only as Rudo.

Neither the wankie nor criticism from his family prevented Rudo’s husband from making the woman his second wife.

“The use of herbal agents is linked to anxiety in sexual performance and competition among women for men,” says Runganga. “Usage is widespread among women of all social and economic backgrounds.”

Information about these agents is passed on to young women by their father’s sisters, or, where these traditional counsellors are missing, by friends or older women at kitchen parties or other events restricted to women.

Their use is so widespread that only one abstainer was recorded among 151 sexually active women polled in the study Runganga and Kasule did on ‘The vaginal use of herbs/substances: an HIV facilitatory factor.’

Another study, conducted at an urban health clinic, found that 93 percent of the patients and 80 percent of the nurses used some variety of wankie.

But Kasule and other medical researchers say that the use of drying agents may increase the risk of contracting STDs, HIV and cervical cancer. “The vagina is easily damaged during the sex act,” Kasule explains. “Even if they are not visibly to the naked eye, those microscopic lacerations are a port of entry to the circulation.”

There are other dangers too. Condoms, whose use is being encouraged to halt the spread of HIV, may be torn due to the tightness of the vagina caused by the agents or corroded by the potions’ chemical action.

Kasule believes there is also a link between vaginal drying agents and cervical cancer, which constitutes 37 percent of all cancers here according to various studies.

He has found that cervical cancer occurs most commonly in poor, poorly educated women who may be unaware of the significance of, or too poor to seek treatment for, tell-tale signs such as intramenstrual bleeding, postcoital bleeding or pain and unusual discharges.

“Some of these women don’t even know what a Pap smear is and by the time they come in to us, 75 percent of them have cancer in its terminal stages,” he said.

Despite the concern of medical practitioners like Kasule, there is no active policy to discourage the use of the vaginal drying agents since their link to disease has not been proven. In any event, ending their use will be difficult. “It’ll take time and more health education,” Kasule says. “Unfortunately, these are no-go areas that could never be discussed openly on TV and radio.”

Runganga suggests that, instead of using the drying agents, women can strengthen the pelvic muscles through exercise so that they can be tensed during coitus.

Sibanda admits that some herbs have been proven to be harmful and their use is now discouraged, but points out that all substances with medicinal properties can be harmful if abused.

Like many people here, he considers the agents important and says their use will only end when a subsitute is offered: “Love alone is not enough. It must be complemented, it needs onions and tomatoes.

“Western women put silicon implants in their breasts or crash diet to please men, and Zimbabwean women put drying agents in their vagina for the same reason,” explains a foreign woman married to a Zimbabwean and who tried wankie at his request.

She swelled and itched so badly she only did it once.