| From: |
joya banerjee [ profile ] |
| Subject: |
Fwd: CDC: Male Circumcision a Forgotten Key in AIDS Prevention
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| Sent: |
Dec 13th, 2011 - 11:24:43 |
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Brian Morris
http://www.thebody.com/content/65091/male-circumcision-a-forgotten-key-in-aids-preventi.html
Male Circumcision a Forgotten Key in AIDS Prevention
From U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
December 7, 2011
Male circumcision is one of the most overlooked tools to prevent HIV,
experts said at the 16th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in
Africa (ICASA), which is meeting Dec. 4-8 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
UNAIDS and the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief have
announced a five-year campaign to encourage men in 14 sub-Saharan
Africa countries to undergo medical circumcision, which studies have
shown reduces the risk of female-to-male sexual HIV transmission by
roughly 60 percent.
"If we have a 60 percent reduction, if you combine that to the other
prevention measures we have, we can start reducing sexual transmission
numbers of new infections even more than 50 percent," said Michel
Sidibe, UNAIDS director.
Luo communities in Kenya initially resisted male circumcision, which
had been out of favor for hundreds of years, Sidibe said. "When we
managed to bring the elders and managed to mobilize them, and make
them understand it is a matter of survival of their community, the
change was amazing. People who were resisting circumcision, today they
are just asking, and [the authorities] don't know even how to deliver
on it."
Overall, successful and sustained campaigns against AIDS will require
African governments to take the lead role, Sidibe said. "My
expectation is to engage African leaders and make them understand that
we cannot put people on treatment for life just counting on resources
coming from outside," he said. They should be "looking on domestic
funding and trying to look at innovation in terms of funding on the
continent."
"The relationship with countries is moving from a traditional donor
relationship to one more of a partnership, where we expect there to be
a contribution from the country to match and amplify our contributions
in-country," said Dr. Eric Goosby, the US global AIDS coordinator.
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