Posted on 07/23/2007 10:17:24 AM PDT by traumer
South African Aids experts have called for a mass circumcision programme after studies showed it reduced the rate of HIV infection by up to 60%.
Professor Alan Whiteside said all boys born in public hospitals should be offered the operation.
"It is so blindingly obvious that there are real reasons for circumcision," he said at a national Aids conference.
Some 5.5m South Africans have HIV - second only to India - and one person in nine is infected.
Some, but not all, of South Africa's ethnic groups practise circumcision.
"In South Africa, high proportions of men and women find it acceptable to be circumcised," said Neil Martinson of the Perinatal HIV/Aids Research Unit.
Health minister 'snub'
Some critics have, however, warned against mass circumcision, pointing out that it did not help women and could encourage men to feel they were immune and take part in risky behaviour.
But Mr Martinson said these fears were not borne out by studies.
Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is known as 'Dr Beetroot'
"People weren't going around and sleeping around more because they didn't have a foreskin," he said.
Last year, studies into the link between male circumcision and HIV infection in Africa were stopped because the evidence was so striking.
Meanwhile, organisers of the conference have denied reports that they snubbed controversial Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.
"The committee confirmed that Dr Tshabalala-Msimang had been invited repeatedly to take part officially at the opening of the conference on Tuesday evening," said a statement from organisers Dira Sengwe.
Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka had told the conference that Dr Tshabalala-Msimang had missed a session on Wednesday because she was unhappy with her allocated slot.
Dr Tshabalala-Msimang has often told people with HIV to eat garlic, lemons and beetroot, while casting doubt on anti-retroviral drugs.
Anti-Aids activists have long demanded her dismissal.
She has just returned to official duties this week after having a liver transplant.
Get yourself in line...
I suspect that if you eat enough garlic your chance of contracting AIDS do indeed go down...
A jewish neighbor of mine died of Aids. This is not a cure all, behavior is.
“Hospitals told to keep the tips” {rim shot, cymbal crash}
I wonder if I should go back for a mass circumcision. The first time, they just took a little off the top.
Mysteriously, the same experts are silent on keeping your legs together, and only having sex with your legally married spouse, afters studies show it reduced the rate of HIV infection by at least 100% where tried.
Another circumcision thread.. perhaps this one will play out sooner.
Very doubtful statistic. Most of these people aren't being treated, and people with untreated AIDS die very quickly.
If these huge numbers for African countries are correct, we'd should be seeing a massive population crash in these countries, and we just aren't. Especially since they've been saying this for about 15 or 20 years.
Might not the correlation be with the religious training, more that the actual operation?
You were lucky, I couldn't walk for a year.. and couldn't talk for nearly two.
Wasn’t it revealed recently that the problem in Africa is overstated, and that WHO is classifying people who come in with sores and diarrhea as HIV+ without giving them tests?
At any rate, there is a small but loud lobby in America trying to end circumcision, so we’ll probably hear from them over this. One guy was suing his parents for having the procedure done. I see a sticker someone put on a light post almost every day: “Uncircumcised? You lucky stiff!”
How about we not practice behaviors that are KNOWN to pass on the virus?
India’s HIV cases highly overestimated, survey shows
July 06, 2007
Scientific American
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The number of people living with HIV/AIDS in India is 2.47 million, less than half of previous official estimates, according to new U.N.-backed government estimates released on Friday.
India was thought to have the world’s biggest HIV-positive caseload with 5.7 million infections but the new estimate puts it below South Africa and Nigeria.
The new figure was calculated with the help of the United Nations and United States Agency for International Development.
“We have about 2.47 million estimated cases which is huge in terms of numbers,” Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss told a news conference. “In terms of human lives affected, the number is still large, in fact very large. This is very worrying for us.”
The prevalence level of the infection was now estimated to be around 0.36 percent of the more than 1.1 billion population from the earlier 0.9 percent, he said.
The minister’s comments came at the launch of the country’s new $2.8-billion National AIDS Control Program, which aims to expand free treatment for HIV-positive people and roll back the epidemic through more prevention campaigns.
Previously, the United Nations had arrived at the 5.7 million figure by using hundreds of surveillance centers to test the blood of pregnant women and high-risk groups such as injecting drug users and prostitutes over four months each year.
But a new population-based survey that took the blood samples of 102,000 people to test for HIV among the general public — rather than specific groups — indicated for the first time India’s HIV caseload was highly overestimated.
The UNAIDS agency says population surveys that do not depend on someone going to a specific government clinic are “more representative” and generate “more accurate information” for rural areas and the male population.
“MORE PRECISE” ASSESSMENT
To determine the new estimate, both the population survey and surveillance data were used.
“The prevalence from the national survey has been used as almost a starting base,” Peter Ghys, UNAIDS’s Geneva-based Manager of Epidemic and Impact Monitoring, told Reuters.
“The expanded sources of data give us a much more precise assessment of what the status is of the epidemic,” he added. “The new estimate is closer to the true prevalence.”
Health experts say that in a number of countries, HIV caseloads and prevalence rates have fallen, often sharply, after they carried out population-based surveys.
In India, the fact that government surveillance centers are mainly visited by poorer people — who are more affected by HIV — and high risk groups led to the national estimate to be skewed upwards, they add.
Ramadoss said there was no plan to reduce funding for AIDS because of the lower estimate and added the government may actually increase funding, as 140 of India’s 604 districts had a HIV prevalence of more than 1 percent.
Sujatha Rao, the head of the state-run National AIDS Control Organization, said India could not let down its guard.
“This is our last window of opportunity to reverse the epidemic and ensure it does not get into the general population because if it does, we are done for,” Rao said.
Voluntary groups running anti-HIV/AIDS campaigns say the new, lower numbers should not deflect attention from the need to curb the spread of the deadly virus in a country with a crumbling government healthcare system.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?alias=indias-hiv-cases-highly-o&chanId=sa003&modsrc=reuters
I don't think it's a good idea to get that done more than once so I'll pass.
You may have a point. Especially since the supposed survey was conducted in mostly Muslim countries in Africa, where the society is not conducive to premarital sex/ promiscuity as much as it is in other places.
Many in America are circumcised. Almost none of the Europeans, barring the Muslims and some Jews, are circumcised. Yet, the difference in HIV rates in both places isn’t too different.
This study is bogus. It even got an HIV numbers estimate wrong.
Then cutting off the entire penis is an even better idea, because it reduces the rate of HIV infection by 100%.
LOLOLOL
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