Zimbabwe MPS in group circumcision
Israelis train African doctors in anti-hiv push
SEVERAL ZIMBABWEAN MPs and parliamentary staff were circumcised on Friday in an attempt to tackle the HIVAids epidemic head-on.
The procedures were carried out in a temporary clinic set up in Parliament House in the capital, Harare.
More than a million individuals in Zimbabwe are believed to be HIV-positive, with about 500,000 receiving antiretroviral treatment. First to undergo the operation was Blessing Chebundo, chairman of Zimbabwean Parliamentarians Against Aids.
He told the BBC it was possible that some members of the executive, including President Robert Mugabe, may also undergo the procedure. He said the main objective was to get other citizens to do likewise.
Meanwhile, an Israeli initiative, Operation Abraham, has for the past 18 months been training doctors in 14 African countries to perform circumcisions on adult males in order to reduce the risk of HIV infection, according to the Jerusalem Post. Around 100 operations are performed daily.
The project, which is recommended by the World Health Organisation and UNAids for reducing the spread of HIV, has trained 17 medical teams at 13 hospitals in the Kwazulu-Natal area of South Africa. Project head, Jerusalem-based Dr Inon Schenker, an expert in Aids prevention, says each circumcision prevents five cases of HIV-infection.
Jack Lewis, co-director of the Community Media Trust, a health media production company in Cape Town, said that randomised controlled trials in Kenya and South Africa had repeatedly shown that circumcision achieved up to two-thirds efficacy in reducing female to male transmission, which would ultimately translate into fewer female infections.