Male Circumcision 'is Best Weapon in Fight Against Aids'
Posted on: Friday, 9 May 2008, 09:00 CDT
The billions of dollars spent on Aids prevention programmes based on HIV vaccines, wide-scale testing and the promotion of condoms or sexual abstinence have turned out to be less effective than a simple surgical operation to remove the foreskin.
Some of the world's most distinguished scientists have warned that the "central pillars" of HIV prevention - from condom use to HIV vaccines - have crumbled in sub-Saharan Africa.
On the 25th anniversary of discovery of the virus, the researchers warned that a quarter of a century of research into HIV vaccines and anti-viral creams, along with health programmes, have all failed to stem the Aids epidemic in Africa.
The scientists said there was an urgent need to reappraise existing strategies by looking at how to expand male circumcision in sub-Saharan Africa, where the heterosexual Aids epidemic has spilled into the general population, rather than being confined to high- risk groups.
Daniel Halperin, of the Harvard School of Public Health, a co- author of the study, said that the time has come to look at male circumcision as the most important tool there is to limit the spread of HIV within the world's worst-affected regions.
Less than 1 per cent of the funds spent by the UN programme has gone on male circumcision yet the other, more expensive strategies have failed to live up to expectations. "We need a fairly dramatic shift in priorities, not just a minor tweaking," added Dr Halperin.
In circumcised men, the risk falls by 60 per cent, but even in women there is a knock-on effect. "Male circumcision, which has been called a 'surgical vaccine', would probably protect more women, albeit indirectly, than nearly any other achievable HIV prevention strategy," the scientists say in the journal Science.
"Modelling suggests that male circumcision could avert up to 5.7 million new HIV infections and three million deaths over the next 20 years in sub-Saharan Africa, many of these among women," they said.
Professor Malcolm Potts, of the University of California, Berkeley, said: "It is tragic that we did not act on male circumcision in 2000, when the evidence was already very compelling."
Source: Independent, The; London (UK)
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