News

Laura MacDonald
(This page does not contain medical advice)

America's burden of HIV revealed

Tuesday 2nd March 2010
In the latest piece of news undermining the push for infant circumcision to prevent HIV, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine has revealed an HIV epidemic in the States which rivals that seen in parts of Africa.

For example, research shows that more than 1 in 30 adults in Washington, D.C., are HIV-infected — a prevalence higher than that seen in Ethiopia, Nigeria, or Rwanda. Among men who have sex with men (MSM), the study reveals that in some US areas 30% are infected.

With an overwhelming majority of US adult males circumcised in infancy, the figures weaken the case that male circumcision will protect populations against HIV. It follows the news that 6 out of 10 new HIV cases in British Africans are among Muslims (almost all circumcised), and that in Uganda "confused" young men are having to be reminded that circumcision is not an adequate protection against sexual diseases. In Kenya women are complaining that circumcision is giving the promiscuous a false sense of security, and it's been revealed that in two areas of almost universal male circumcision, HIV is rising rapidly - reaching 8.3% in the country's coastal province.

The authors of the report on the American HIV epidemic suggest that ideology is hampering America's approach to HIV prevention: "Preventive interventions must be rooted in science, not driven by ideological concerns."