The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | In a bid to fight HIV infection in men and young adolescents by at least 60% according to UNAIDS recommendation, KKCA/CDC Urban Health Project, prioritized Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC) VMMC is offered as part of the comprehensive HIV services package at Kisugu and Komamboga HC IIIs in Kampala Capital City. Quite a big number of clients were circumcised in Komamboga and Kisugu Health Centre IIIs during October-December 2022.
The VMMC team employed methods including community outreach, engaging Village Health Teams (VHTs) and Division Health Teams (DHTs) among others to achieve the results according to Stephen Mbabazi, Research, Learning and Adaptive Coordinator KCCA/CDC Urban Health Strategy.
Pius Kyeyune, 23, a resident of Kawempe North, Kizza zone and a boda-boda rider at Kalerwe stage accessed Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision services at a camp organized by the KCCA/CDC Urban Health Project.
“Having had a great desire to be circumcised an idea that arose from the good stories conveyed by many of my friends from childhood, I responded to a community drive call from one of the community mobilizers during one of the mornings at home where the public was being notified of the availability of circumcision services at Komamboga Health Centre III,”
“The continuous discomfort that arose from my childhood school friends and positive preaching on the importance of being circumcised by fellow Boda-boda riders at my stage further forced me to visit the facility,”
Male circumcision is a dangerous distraction in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
From a USAID report:
“There appears no clear pattern of association between male circumcision and HIV prevalence—in 8 of 18 countries with data, HIV prevalence is lower among circumcised men, while in the remaining 10 countries it is higher.”
(this will include men who were circumcised tribally rather than medically, but they and their partners may also believe themselves to be protected, and the whole rationale for the RCTs into female-to-male transmission was a purported correlation between high rates of male circumcision and low rates of HIV)
From a study in South Africa in August 2018:
“Medically circumcised older men in a rural South African community had higher HIV prevalence than uncircumcised men, suggesting that the effect of selection into circumcision may be stronger than the biological efficacy of circumcision in preventing HIV acquisition.”
[or that male circumcision simply isn’t efficacious at preventing HIV acquisition]
It seems highly unrealistic to expect that there will be no risk compensation. The South African National Communication Survey on HIV/AIDS, 2009 found that 15% of adults across age groups “believe that circumcised men do not need to use condoms”. This figure seems to have been unchanged in 2012.
It is unclear if circumcised men are more likely to infect women. The only ever randomized controlled trial into male-to-female transmission showed a 54% higher rate in the group where the men had been circumcised.
ABC (Abstinence, Being faithful, and especially Condoms) is the way forward. Promoting genital surgery seems likely to cost African lives rather than save them.
Europeans don’t circumcise, South Americans don’t circumcise, Australians and New Zealanders used to circumcise but stopped, and less than half of North Americans circumcise. Why should Africans circumcise?
Recent news from Botswana:
“There is an upsurge of cases of people who got infected with HIV following circumcision.”
and from Zimbabwe:
“SOME circumcised men are contracting HIV and Aids after ditching the use of condoms, under a misguided belief that male circumcision (MC) would prevent them from getting infected”
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/2013/11/10/circumcised-men-indulge-risky-sexual-behaviour/
and from Kenya:
“Push for male circumcision in Nyanza fails to reduce infections”
and from Uganda:
“A new study of 314 female s-x workers (FSWs) in Makindye division found that more than half of respondents falsely believe that once a man is circumcised, protection is not necessary during s-x.”
and from Malawi:
“According to the report, HIV rates have doubled in Malawi moving from 10% to 20% in 1 year. Strangely, this has been the same period that Malawians have been manipulatively forced to go through circumcision in masses with the promise that it reduces the contraction of HIV.”
I would like to thank the matupuar mobile VMMC team for agreeing to circumcise a foreign national from Norway, with a Kenyan Girlfriend. We met at London South University, whilst on a post graduate course. We visited Tampara, family and they agreed to our marriage, and me being circumcised. In fact Tampara made it quite clear I needed to be circumcised.
Luckily her aunt is the local VCCM co-ordinator. Morning after arriving I was filling out forms in the local clinic, inspected and assessed, and shaved and prepped. 1 hour later I was shang ring circumcised.
We are married live in Kenya, with 2 boys, about to be circumcised at 6 and 8. I’m a water engineer as is my princess.