Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)
21 Février 2008
Certain medical workers in Rwanda have expressed concern about the country's campaign to promote male circumcision as a means of curbing the spread of HIV. They fear that in a country with low levels of knowledge about sexual health, people could mistakenly believe the procedure offers complete protection against the virus.
[ See Article ]
In Rwanda, 3.8% of circumcised men have HIV, compared to 2.1% of intact men, so what the heck do they think they're doing? That's nearly twice as many. I'm not (of course) saying circumcision promotes HIV transmission (though it might) but clearly something else is going on. These figures are from the 2005 Demographic and Health Survey ( http://www.measuredhs.com/pubs/pdf/FR183/15Chapter15.pdf , p10 and p15).
Circumcision can only help men who have unsafe sex with HIV+ partners. Promoting genital surgery instead of safe sex seems likely to make the AIDS problem worse not better.