AIDS: UN Agencies Convene Meeting to Study Male Circumcision as
Curb to Infection
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New York, Feb 23 2007 10:00AM
United Nations health agencies have convened an international
meeting of AIDS experts for early March to examine the latest
findings that male circumcision cuts the risk of HIV infection
in men in heterosexual relations by up to 60 per cent.
The consultation will address a range of policy, operational
and ethical issues that will help guide decisions about where
and how male circumcision can be best implemented, promoted and
safely performed,â the UN World Health Organization (WHO) and
the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) said in a statement
today.
Male circumcision has major potential for the prevention of HIV
infection, WHO HIV/AIDS Department Director Kevin De Cock
added. These findings are a very important contribution to HIV
prevention science.
The detailed
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2007/s04/en/index.html
findings of two trials undertaken in Kenya and Uganda to
determine whether male circumcision has a protective effect
against acquiring HIV infection were published in the British
medical journal The Lancet.
Funded by the United States National Institutes of Health, the
trials support the results of the South Africa Orange Farm
Intervention Trial, funded by the French National Agency for
Research on AIDS (ANRS), published in late 2005. Together the
three studies, which enrolled more than 10,000 participants,
provide compelling evidence of a 50 to 60 per cent reduction in
heterosexual HIV transmission to men, the statement said.
When preliminary results were published in December showing a 50
per cent reduction, UN agencies gave a guarded welcome, warning
that circumcision should never pre-empt other preventive
measures such as the use of condoms.
Proper guidelines will be necessary to prevent people from
developing a false sense of security and, as a result, engaging
in high-risk behaviours which could negate the protective effect
of male circumcision, they said then, noting that circumcision
does not provide complete protection, and circumcised men can
still become infected and, if HIV-positive, infect their sexual
partners.
They also stressed that any recommendations would have to take
into account cultural and human rights considerations; the risk
of complications from the procedure performed in various
settings; the potential to undermine existing protective
behaviours and strategies; and the fact that the ideal and well-
resourced conditions of a randomized trial are often not
replicated in other settings.