July 23rd, 2007, 09:55
SYDNEY (Reuters) - The world's biggest scientific HIV/AIDS conference opened in Australia on Sunday with experts calling for more funding for research and new findings which suggest male circumcision can reduce infection by 60 percent.
About 5,000 delegates from more than 130 countries are attending the conference in Sydney this week to hear from the world's top experts in the fight against the global pandemic.
Delegates will be shown evidence from trials in Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa that circumcision can reduce the risk of HIV infection in heterosexual men by about 60 percent.
The trials confirmed previous studies which have reported circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection. Muslim and Jewish men are circumcised in accordance with religious beliefs.
A briefing note said male circumcision in sub-Saharan Africa would prevent 5.7 million new cases of HIV infection and 3 million deaths over 20 years.
And condoms can reduce it by 100%. I fail to see why 5.7 million sub Saharan people should be mutilated when there is a simple preventative out there. Besides which the cost of antibiotics and back street hatchet jobs and the 40 % that will get it anyway without a condom despite being chopped, would make this to my mind not the very best of ideas.
There is also the little problem of people believing because they have been circumcised that they are not at risk, which would in fact decrease the 60% that it is believed would be spared the disease substantially.
The unfortunate peoples of South Africa where these circumcision trials are apparently underway, have already been mislead by their wacky health minister into thinking that a clove of garlic a day is a simple yet effective HIV morning after pill?
About 5,000 delegates from more than 130 countries are attending the conference in Sydney this week to hear from the world's top experts in the fight against the global pandemic.
Delegates will be shown evidence from trials in Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa that circumcision can reduce the risk of HIV infection in heterosexual men by about 60 percent.
The trials confirmed previous studies which have reported circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection. Muslim and Jewish men are circumcised in accordance with religious beliefs.
A briefing note said male circumcision in sub-Saharan Africa would prevent 5.7 million new cases of HIV infection and 3 million deaths over 20 years.
And condoms can reduce it by 100%. I fail to see why 5.7 million sub Saharan people should be mutilated when there is a simple preventative out there. Besides which the cost of antibiotics and back street hatchet jobs and the 40 % that will get it anyway without a condom despite being chopped, would make this to my mind not the very best of ideas.
There is also the little problem of people believing because they have been circumcised that they are not at risk, which would in fact decrease the 60% that it is believed would be spared the disease substantially.
The unfortunate peoples of South Africa where these circumcision trials are apparently underway, have already been mislead by their wacky health minister into thinking that a clove of garlic a day is a simple yet effective HIV morning after pill?