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Call to circumcise all boys to prevent HIV/AIDS
Di Caelers. 07 June 2007. Independent Online. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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A top South African HIV/AIDS specialist has called for routine circumcision for every boy baby born at the country's public hospitals.
And other contributors to the debate have suggested that women take the reins and refuse to have sex with any man who isn't circumcised.
The call for a national programme came at the third SA AIDS Conference from Professor Alan Whiteside, director of the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Health, Economics and HIV and AIDS Research Division.
It comes on the back of studies that have proved that circumcised men are 60 percent less likely to contract HIV.
The highly controversial issue drew everything from cheers to jeers during two sessions devoted to the thorny question yesterday.
This follows three studies in Africa, one in Orange Farm in South Africa, which were halted early because scientists proved quickly the benefit of circumcision in helping prevent HIV infection.
The risk reduction in the three studies ranged between 51 percent and 60 percent.
Whiteside told delegates a routine circumcision programme for baby boys now would reap benefits in 20 or 30 years.
"If we had started 25 years ago, we wouldn't be in the God-awful mess we are in now," he said.
Conceding that all South African men couldn't be circumcised at once, Whiteside suggested the country start with the men who wanted the procedure.
"Circumcision should be available routinely and medical schemes should pay for it," he said.
Earlier, Professor Bertran Auvert, professor of public health at the University of Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines in France, said it was clear from an examination of African countries that high circumcision rates equalled low HIV prevalence.
He pointed to Benin, Senegal, Cameroon, Kenya and the DRC where more than 80 percent of men are circumcised and HIV rates were lower than 6 percent.
Conversely, in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Botswana, Lesotho and Namibia, where male circumcision rates are below 40 percent, HIV rates spiral to higher than 20 percent.
"What a risk reduction of about 60 percent translates to in the two years following male circumcision is the prevention of an average six out of 10 potential HIV infections," Auvert said.
On whether circumcision would be acceptable in countries where most men are uncircumcised, he said 13 studies, including two in South Africa, had shown high acceptability between 65 percent and 81 percent.
Auvert suggested that it might be time for women to refuse to have sex with uncircumcised men. |
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