VIDEO: Bill Gates funds super thin condom

• Posted on June 7, 2014
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Bill Gates believes he has found the solution to the AIDS crisis in the form of a skin-like condom that, unlike current condoms, men will actually want to wear.

The Independent reports that the Microsoft founder has given a $100,000 grant to researchers at Australia’s University of Wollongong to develop a hydrogel-based condom that delivers a sensation as close to skin-to-skin contact as possible.

Hydrogel is softer than latex, but can also reportedly stretch longer than a current condom without breaking.

Gates believes that because the condom feels more like skin than latex, men will be more likely to wear it.

Condom use has gone down in men, mostly because current models do not yield enough pleasure.

Gates said in an ask-me-anything on Reddit last year that he agrees we have yet to see a condom that men do not feel is a burden to wear.

He said,

The idea was that men don’t like the current design so perhaps something they would be more open to would allow for less HIV transmission. We still haven’t gotten the results.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given $100,000 to 11 groups also working on a “new generation of condoms that significantly preserve or enhance pleasure.”

Here’s a look at some of the lab work the researchers are conducting at the Australian institution:

H/T: The Independent