(From Swazi Media Commentary 20 September 2010 www.swazimedia.blogspot.com Also
on Face book at
http://www.facebook.com/Swazi.Media.Commentary?v=wall#!/group.php?gid=142383985790674&ref=ts).
The Swazi Government’s policy on
pressing men to be circumcised to prevent HIV spreading is in tatters with the
revelation that in Swaziland
there is a higher HIV rate among men who have had the cut than those who
have not.
And
the figures have been known since 2007 – before the government’s
circumcision drive started.
The Swaziland
Demographic and Health Survey (SDHS) of 2007 says the
infection rate for circumcised males is 22 percent while for those
uncircumcised it is 20 percent.
The Swazi
Government has wholeheartedly supported
a drive to get men to undertake circumcision. It even went so far
as to push for all new born babies
to be cut. Over the past few months it has been backing the
circumcision of schoolboys.
As
I have written many
times over the past years, there is no reliable evidence that
circumcision reduces the likelihood of infection spreading. Instead,
education about safe sex methods is by far the best way to stop the
spread of HIV.
The
figures, published
yesterday (19 September 2010), show that the government’s policy is
based on a false premise – that there is a provable reduction in HIV
infection among circumcised men. The results of the SDHS do not
show that. If anything they show the opposite, but one could make the
case that at 22 percent and 20 percent respectively, the figures show
there is no real difference one way or the other.
Will the Swazi Government now come
clean and tell people that circumcision makes no difference and
redouble efforts to get the message out about safe sex.Link
http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2010/09/circumcision-policy-in-shreds.html
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