In an effort to combat an “epidemic” of sexually transmitted diseases among teenagers, the city of Philadelphia will be installing condom dispensers in 22 city high schools where students as young as 14 will be able to receive condoms for free. When students return to school from the holiday break, clear plastic dispensers filled with condoms will be located in the office of the schools’ nurses of schools with the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases. Condoms in the past have been provided to students in Philadelphia as part of a program in which the teenagers are provided “free, voluntary and confidential” testing for sexual diseases in their schools.

The results of those tests led officials to launch the current program to distribute condoms regularly in schools instead of once a year when the tests are administered. Of the 130,000 students who have received testing in the last five years, roughly 6,500 of them have tested positive for diseases including HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.