Medical Male Circumcision In East And South Africa Is Effective In Preventing HIV
In eastern and southern Africa, expanding voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) for preventing HIV can help stem the spread of the disease at an individual, community and population level. In addition, VMMC can lead to significant expenditure savings for nations, according to a collection of novel reports published Nov. 29 in PLoS Medicine and PLoS ONE, in association with the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the United States President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR).
The first report, by Catherine Hankins of UNAIDS, Steven Forsythe of The Futures Institute, and Emmanuel Njeuhmeli of PEPFAR/USAID, outlines the cost, impact and challenges of accelerated scaling up and summarizes the basis of the novel collection. This report, and the one after it, lead the way in accelerating the increase of VMMC service delivery in a safe and efficient manner, in order to gain benefits at an individual- and population-level.
Furthermore, the additional 8 reports concentrate on the numerous factors that contribute to an effective program expansion of VMMC, including data for:
- human resources
- decision making
- demand creation
- human resources
- logistics
- policy and programmatic frameworks
- translating research into services
The financial savings are evident
Between 2011-2015, an initial investment of US$1.5 billion to achieve 80% coverage of voluntary medical male circumcision services in 14 priority nations in southern and eastern Africa, followed by an investment of US$0.5 billion between 2016-2025 in order to maintain that coverage, would result in US$16.5 billion in net savings between the years 2011 and 2025. Although, as the reports in the collection demonstrate, country ownership, stakeholder engagement and strong political leadership, together with community mobilization, human resource deployment and effective demand creation, are vital in efficiently scaling-up and maintaining VMMC programs.
Twitter expert session
A question and answer Twitter expert session [#VMMC@USAIDGH] will be held on 19th December, 2011 from 1pm-2pm with Dr Emmanuel Njeuhmeli, Senior Biomedical Prevention Advisor of the Office of HIV/AIDS/USAID Washington, Co-Chair PEPFAR, Male Circumcision Technical Working Group, an author of the collection.
On 5th December 2011 at the International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) in Addis Abada, a joint Strategic Action Framework to speed up the expansion of VMMC for HIV prevention in southern and eastern Africa, 2012 – 2016 will be launched. The Framework has been developed with WHO, UNAIDS, PEPFAR, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, and national programs.
Written by Grace Rattue
Copyright: Medical News Today
