Spain to offer free condoms to young people as STI rates hit a ten-year high

The government will spend more than €9 million making contraception available through pharmacies for 16 to 22-year-olds from 2027

Spain recorded more than 93,000 sexually transmitted infections in 2024, the highest figure in over a decade, and the government is now taking action. From 2027, young people aged 16 to 22 will be able to collect free condoms from pharmacies across the country, funded by a €9 million investment from the Ministry of Health.

The measure forms part of the new 2026-2030 STI Roadmap, a broader strategy aimed at reversing what has been a steady upward trend in infections since the early 2000s. Health Minister Mónica García said the funding was designed to remove practical barriers to prevention. "The aim is to eliminate economic barriers, reinforce prevention, and make responsible decisions more accessible and their implementation increasingly feasible," she said.

The plan is to follow the model already in place in France, where since 2023 young people have been able to collect free condoms at pharmacies using their social security card, with no need for a doctor's visit. Spain is expected to adopt a similar approach, distributing through its network of 22,000 pharmacies and more than 56,000 pharmacists. The initial target is to reach three million young people across the country, each entitled to receive a free box of condoms periodically.

The scale of the problem the measure is trying to address is striking. Of the 93,000 cases reported in 2024, chlamydia was the most common infection with 41,918 cases, followed by gonorrhea with 37,257, an annual increase of 28.9% between 2020 and 2024. Syphilis reached 11,930 cases, up 19.4% compared to 2021. Most diagnoses were in young adults, and while men were more affected across most infections, women under 25 accounted for a significant proportion of chlamydia cases.

Alongside the pharmacy scheme, the ministry has also authorised Spain's first self-sampling kit for STI diagnosis, allowing people to test privately without attending a clinic. A third strand of the strategy focuses on monitoring drug-resistant gonorrhea, where new strains could potentially render current treatments ineffective.

The overall ambition, as Director General of Public Health Pedro Gullón has made clear, is for prevention to become a right rather than an afterthought, and for HIV and STIs to no longer represent a public health problem in Spain by 2030.

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