Male Circumcision against HIV Infection: Reel or Real?

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Male circumcision is said to be a preventive measure against the spread of the Human immunodeficiency virus or HIV. This microbe is responsible for the highly risky and deadly disease: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS.

Among the US military, male circumcision is the strongly reiterated among its troops especially those deployed in Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

US global AIDS Coordinator, Eric Goosby said that “male circumcision is a highly significant, lifetime intervention.”

Researches revealed that through circumcision it can dramatically and significantly reduced HIV infections. In South Africa for example, in 2011, after a circumcision program in one of its town almost ¾ percent of the sexually transmitted diseases fell. There are theories that the virus normally stays on the foreskin, therefore upon intercourse the chances of transmitting the virus is greater even if a person wears a condom.

However, there were also studies that rebut this correlation (between circumcision and HIV infection). In Uganda for example, 922 HIV infected men are circumcised yet the HIV infected population is greater. This could be attributed to the unhealed wounds or the improper observance of hygiene.

Nonetheless, circumcision still remains to be a cultural practice for most.

 

 

 

2 Comments

  1. "In South Africa for example, in 2011, after a circumcision program in one of its town almost ¾ percent of the sexually transmitted diseases fell." That is fallacious. Did the fall occur more in the circumcised men? Apparently not. If the circumcision programme went with an education programme, as it certainly should, the circumcising may have had nothing to do with it.

    In 10 out of 18 countries for which USAID has figures, more of the CIRCUMCISED men had HIV than the non-circumcised. A study in Uganda started to find that circumcising men INcreased the risk to women, but it was cut short for no good reason before that could be confirmed. Circumcision is being promoted by articles like this based on half-baked information, and if it gives men a false sense of security, it is a recipe for disaster.

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