A recent study has shown that male circumcision greatly reduces the transmission of the HIV virus in heterosexual intercourse. The implications for AIDS prevention, especially in Africa, are significant.
After extensive research in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa, the results of the testing show that this procedure could reduce the risk of female-to-male HIV transmission by up to 60 percent.
In male circumcision, the foreskin of the penis is removed. At last year’s International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Dr. Kevin de Cock, director of the World Health Organization’s AIDS department, explained that this foreskin is very thin, easily damaged and that its cells are very vulnerable to the virus, thus increasing chances of HIV infection.
Although this discovery is important for the world over, it is especially pertinent for Sub-Saharan Africa, a region more heavily affected by HIV and AIDS than any other in the world. It is estimated that 24.5 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2005 and that about 2.7 million additional people were infected with HIV during that year. In just the past year, Africa’s AIDS epidemic has claimed the lives of an estimated 2 million people in this region. More than twelve million children have been orphaned by AIDS.
Researchers of this study stress that the specifically African economic and cultural context must be taken into consideration when implementing circumcision as a standard practice. Who will qualify to carry out the practice in an already overstressed health care system? What kind of education will take place to ensure that the demand for male circumcision does not lead to an increased practice of female circumcision? Decades of work have gone into fighting the harm that female genital mutilation causes women and girls. They may have similar names, but male and female circumcision have no common health benefits. Female genital mutilation, in fact, could promote disease transmission and acquisition.
Male circumcision does not eliminate the risk of infection and should be encouraged as an additional prevention strategy that includes use of condoms, reductions in the number of sexual partners, and voluntary and confidential counselling and HIV testing.
This article was published Thursday, March 1, 2007.
