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Is circumcision the answer to fighting AIDS?
Published: 03 March, 2009, 22:48
A new website helping to debunk myths about the link between HIV and circumcision has been launched by the World Health Organization (WHO).
WHO has recommended male circumcision in developing countries after studies in Africa showed that the operation can lower the risk for men of getting the virus by 60 percent.
However, since many developing countries started using this method to reduce the spread of infection, much misinformation has appeared. More problems arose as traditional healers in poor countries began offering cheap circumcisions without sterile instruments, reports the New York Times.
Last week WHO, together with the UN AIDS program, the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, Family Health International and several schools of public health created a web site malecircumcision.org. Its aim is to fight popular myths about circumcision, for instance the one that it gives a 100 % reduction in female-to-male transmission of HIV, and that men can stop using condoms.
 web site malecircumcision.org |
The site has already been visited by internet users from the U.S., Switzerland and Britain, Kenya, South Africa, Turkey, Namibia and India.
However some human rights groups have not welcomed the idea. In response to the launch of the website, the International Coalition for Genital Integrity (ICGI) issued a warning to the world health community that male circumcision is the wrong approach to curb the HIV epidemic in Africa and elsewhere.
The organisation’s press review published on prweb.com says: “The push for mass circumcision in Africa will have detrimental consequences, including placing women at greater risk of HIV transmission, creating a false sense of security in circumcised males, and leading to increased risk-compensation behaviors such as no longer using condoms.”
“Circumcision campaigns will result in huge numbers of circumcision complications. This will severely strain the already burdened healthcare infrastructure,” Dr. John Travis, MD, MPH, and ICGI advisor is quoted as saying. “These campaigns will cause the re-direction of money that could be better spent on more effective HIV prevention strategies such as condom distribution and education campaigns.”
He added: “Male circumcision is not the answer to the HIV crisis. We find it especially troubling that infant circumcision is also being promoted. This is a severe human rights violation. To surgically remove a part of an infant’s body for a possible benefit, if any, 15–20 years from now when he becomes sexually active, is simply wrong—especially when there are more effective methods available.”
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These people are only interested in promoting male circumcision for its own sake (or anything-but-condoms), rather than in fighting AIDS. There are seven African countries where men are more likely to be HIV+ if they've been circumcised: Rwanda, Cameroon, Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, and Tanzania. If circumcision really worked against AIDS, this just wouldn't happen. We now have people calling circumcision a "vaccine" or "invisible condom", and viewing circumcision as an alternative to condoms. ABC (Abstinence, Being faithful, Condoms) is the way forward. Promoting genital surgery will cost African lives, not save them. It's not like we've actually tried the things that do work. In Malawi for instance, only 57% know that condoms protect against HIV/AIDS, and only 68% know that limiting sexual partners protects against HIV/AIDS. There are people who haven't even heard of condoms. It just seems really misguided to be hailing male circumcision as the way forward. It would help if some of the aid donors didn't refuse to fund condom education, or work that involves talking to prostitutes. There are African prostitutes that sleep with 20-50 men a day, and some of them say that hardly any of the men use a condom. If anyone really cares about men, women, and children dying in Africa, surely they'd be focussing on education about safe sex rather than surgery that offers limited protection at best, and runs a high risk of risk compensatory behaviour.
Promoting genital mutilation of infants and men is so offensive and ridiculous 'solution' to the AIDS epidemic in Africa - if a similar suggestion was made for female circumcision, it would be immediately dismissed as unnecessary and traumatizing mutilation for a benefit that can be found with other, proven methods