Aids: Male circumcision is key

Male circumcision is becoming a very interesting topic which is creating emotional reactions of some scholars and new research questions by other ones.
Here is a news article talking about it and advocating its importance.


Dec 14 2006 01:27:57:667PM

Southern African countries, the world's region worst affected by Aids, have been urged to embrace male circumcision to partially prevent the spread of HIV.

Blantyre - Southern African countries, the world's region worst affected by Aids, were on Thursday urged to embrace male circumcision to partially prevent the spread of HIV.

"The evidence is substantially overwhelming ... male circumcision reduces the transmission of HIV," Zambian surgeon and university lecturer Kasonde Bowa told health officials and experts from the 14 member nations of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

"SADC must make a decision and generate leadership on this issue. The HIV pandemic has gone up in the region and the key difference is male circumcision," Bowa added.

He said there was "strong acceptability for male circumcision in the region."

"It's very high and there is increased demand for circumcision in non-circumcised countries."

Calling male circumcision a public health intervention, Bows said "it is a low-cost intervention which costs only $15 unlike Aids drugs which cost $480 per year per person and it's a continued expense."

He said circumcision "is not an isolated intervention, but part of a package of HIV prevention. The emphasis is on ensuring safe male circumcision and people want to be circumcised in hospitals and not by traditional healers."

The meeting here in the commercial capital Blantyre and which ends on Thursday, has also been addressing how sex workers and gays can be roped in to help the fight against the disease.

A report by UNAids published this year shows that 63% of all adults and children with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa.

According to the report, adults and children newly infected with the virus rose to 2.8-million in 2006 from 2.4-million in 2004.

SADC groups Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania , Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Source: www.news24.com

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