New hope to fight HIV/AIDS was born in Southern Africa recently. Three controlled trials have shown a dramatic 65% reduction in heterosexual HIV infection to circumcised men. Circumcision is a relatively simple and inexpensive procedure. The ramifications of the findings therefore, are truly ground breaking.
It’s a fact that circumcising adult males will immediately and directly decrease transmission from infected females to their male partners, and also indirectly protect negative women from infection. The implications of this one-time solution, however partial, are enormous. Every 5 circumcisions avert one case of new HIV infection. Very simply – fewer men will be living with HIV so fewer people will be contracting the disease.
The revolutionary findings from randomized control trials in Uganda, Kenya and South Africa were first put to practice in Swaziland and are being replicated in South Africa. With the full support of the government and cultural leaders of the Zulu tribe, an innovative program named SHESHA (fast moving in Zulu) is supporting a massive roll out of medical male circumcision (MMC) service in KwaZulu Natal.
Initiated by a two-week training course in August 2010 the goal is to produce dozens of local medical teams that would be able to perform high volume and high quality medical male circumcisions. The program is conducted under the leadership of St. Mary’s Hospital with the technical support of an international medical team: OAC- Opreation Abraham Collaborative, based in Jerusalem, Israel. So far the course has trained thirteen teams, involving 120 doctors and nurses to perform over 50 adult male circumcisions per day.
There is indeed new hope in the face of the crippling AIDS pandemic and it is everything that treatment has proven not to be – preventative, practical, efficient and cheap. The program also demonstrates a best practice in international collaboration for skills transfer.
