USA Curling and longtime sponsor Kodiak Technology Group are teaming up to sell Hurry Hard condoms. “Hurry hard” is a curling term, and the logo features a cartoon of a smiling curling stone on a house.

The program is a fundraiser, with the proceeds split between the federation and Central Coast HIV/AIDS Services. But USA Curling chief operating officer Rick Patzke says its main purpose is to promote education and awareness.

According to UNAIDS, 2.1 million of the 33.4 million people living with HIV are children under 15. Young people account for about 40 percent of all new adult infections.

Frieden has served as commissioner for the past seven years, where he led a campaign to ban smoking in restaurants and bars, boosted the number of New Yorkers getting HIV tests and helped to distribute millions of free condoms.

In a statement announcing Frieden’s appointment, Obama said the new CDC chief had been a “leader in the fight for health care reform, and his experiences confronting public health challenges in our country and abroad will be essential in this new role.”

Frieden will inherit a looming decision on how best to manage a swine flu outbreak, including whether or how to produce a swine flu vaccine. The virus has infected 6,673 people in 35 countries.

The White House said Frieden will begin at the CDC in early June.

Frieden said in a statement that he was “deeply honored and privileged” to be selected to the post.

“I have loved serving New Yorkers as Health Commissioner and am sorry to be leaving one of the greatest jobs in the world,” Frieden said.

Frieden’s statement highlighted several accomplishments in his seven years, including reducing the city’s smoking rate, particularly for young people; an expansive electronic health record project; and a registry to monitor blood sugar levels among people with diabetes.

Health experts say the CDC needs to make immediate improvements in employee morale and organization as the Obama administration works to overhaul the national health care system.

“Dr. Frieden is an expert in preparedness and response to health emergencies, and has been at the forefront of the fight against heart disease, cancer and obesity, infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and AIDS, and in the establishment of electronic health records,” Obama said in the statement.

Frieden, 48, is expected to take office next month. His appointment does not require Senate confirmation.

He will succeed Dr. Julie Gerberding, who resigned in January. Dr. Richard Besser has served as acting head of the Atlanta-based CDC in recent months.

The White House announcement said Besser, who has led the CDC’s Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response for the past four years, would return to that position.

The change came earlier this month as Congress dropped a requirement that the government buy American-made condoms when possible, with exceptions for price and availability.

Congress traditionally has directed the U.S. Agency for International Development to use American suppliers for the hundreds of millions of condoms it sends into developing countries. The main supplier to benefit from that directive is Alatech Healthcare Products, a southeastern Alabama company with about 300 employees.

Over the years, Alatech became the program’s sole U.S. provider.

USAID says Alatech has had problems filling orders, and there were complaints from the field about the quality of its condoms.

Despite Congress’ direction, the agency has gradually outsourced part of the work to companies in Asia that provide condoms for less than half of Alatech’s price.

Just after Congress omitted “buy American” language for the program in its latest spending bill, USAID quickly signed new contracts with three foreign suppliers and dropped Alatech altogether. The new contractors are in China, South Korea and Malaysia.

“Our responsibility is to provide good stewardship for the taxpayers’ dollars,” said agency spokesman Harry Edwards. “That is what we are trying to do.”

Company President Larry Povlacs said Alatech provided durable condoms at USAID’s request and was never asked to address any complaints about that style. He said USAID simply wanted the cheapest product without regard for his workers in Dothan and Eufaula, Ala.

“I’m faced with telling people that I’ve worked with for 30 years that they may no longer have a job,” Povlacs said.

Gloria Steele, an assistant administrator at USAID, said Alatech’s price of about 5 cents per condom versus 2 cents elsewhere wasn’t competitive, even when using a preferential contracting advantage that agencies give domestic bidders. The work has traditionally been worth between $10 million to $20 million per year, Steele said, with annual production of about 400 million to 500 million condoms.

Povlacs said he had received assurances that USAID would continue buying domestically, and his company has spent millions of dollars to ramp up production.

“Congress’ intent has been to buy American,” Povlacs said. “They put that in appropriations bills year after year.”

Povlacs said he is working with lawmakers to get “buy American” language restored in next year’s spending bill, and company officials are meeting with USAID this week.

A spokesman for Rep. Bobby Bright, a Democrat whose district is home to Alatech, said he also is exploring other avenues to help the firm.

Povlacs said the USAID work made up the bulk of his business, and he is faced with closing “within a matter of weeks.”

Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday that the distribution of condoms is not the answer in the fight against AIDS in Africa.

Benedict has never before spoken explicitly on condom use although he has stressed that the Roman Catholic Church is in the forefront of the battle against AIDS. The Vatican encourages sexual abstinence to fight the spread of the disease.

“You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms,” the pope told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane headed to Yaounde, Cameroon. “On the contrary, it increases the problem.”

Some priests and nuns working with victims of the AIDS pandemic ravaging Africa question the church’s opposition to condoms.

The pope also said that he intends to make an appeal for “international solidarity” for Africa in the face of the global economic downturn.

He said that while the church does not propose specific economic solutions, it can give “spiritual and moral” suggestions.

Describing the current crisis as the consequence of “a deficit of ethics in economic structures,” the pope said, “It is here that the church can make a contribution.”

Benedict’s seven-day pilgrimage will take him to Cameroon and Angola.

Africa is the fastest-growing region for the Roman Catholic Church.

It’s an increase of 20 million from what the government hands out each month the rest of the year in Brazil, which has aggressive anti-HIV and -AIDS efforts praised by the United Nations.

“In addition to the 45 million condoms we already distribute on a monthly basis, we’re increasing that amount this month so there can be enough condoms distributed at all the parties and events that take place during Carnival,” said Mariangela Simao, director of the national HIV-AIDS program in the capital, Brasilia.

All told, the country plans to spend roughly $36 million to purchase 1.2 billion condoms this year – making it the world’s No. 1 government buyer, Simao said. About 560 million free condoms will be available nationwide, or around three for each of Brazil’s 191 million people.

The prophylactics – distributed to state agencies who then hand them out – come in purple wrappers emblazoned with the message “Always use a condom!”

Church officials in Brazil, home to the world’s largest Roman Catholic population, have opposed the condom program.

Also, the Health Ministry hosted a “Mature Woman’s Block Party” in Rio de Janeiro to highlight its latest target demographic: women over the age of 50, about 70 percent of whom do not use condoms, according to the ministry.

Health officials said AIDS cases have tripled among that group in the last decade, from 3.7 cases per 100,000 people to 11.6.

“We senior citizens are still sexually active nowadays, so these types of campaigns are very important,” said Ana Leila Goncalves, a 62-year-old grandmother who took part in the event.

Earlier this month, the health ministry reported it would spend $500,000 this year on 15 million small packets of personal lubricant, which it said helps keep condoms from breaking.

The a cappella ring tone features a professional singer chanting the word condom more than 50 times, a playful approach that public health activists hope will spark discussion and make condoms more socially acceptable.

“We’ve made a conscious effort to move the concept of the condom away from negative association, like HIV and sex work,” said Yvonne MacPherson, country director of BBC World Service Trust India. “Condoms are actually health products and if you have a condom and you use it, you are seen to be smart and responsible.”

Nearly 2.5 million people in India are infected with HIV and the disease is still largely taboo.

The BBC group, which is funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, hopes the condom ring tone can make people in India more comfortable with safe sex issues.

More than 270 million people use mobile phones in India and ring tones, especially those featuring hit Bollywood songs, are extremely popular.

“A ring tone is a very public thing,” she said. “It’s a way to show you are a condom user and you don’t have any issues with it.”

The ring tone was launched Aug. 8 and has been downloaded 60,000 times, MacPherson said.