Promoting male circumcision and fidelity to one partner seems to be more effective at curbing the spread of HIV than promoting abstinence and condom use, USAID researcher and technical adviser Daniel Halperin said last week, the Chicago Tribune
reports. As Halperin and other researchers analyze 20 years of studies
on HIV/AIDS throughout Africa, they have tried to "put aside
intuitions, emotions, ideologies and look at the evidence in as
coldhearted a way as we can," Halperin said. During a speech at a
meeting of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society
in Johannesburg, South Africa, Halperin said he and his colleagues
discovered that regular sex partners rarely use condoms, and abstinence
merely delays HIV infection among young people by one or two years. For
example, condom use in Ghana and Senegal seems to have helped in the
reduction of the spread of the HIV, which in those countries is
particularly prevalent among commercial sex workers and their partners.
However, condom use in South Africa and Botswana has had little effect
in reducing those countries' HIV epidemics -- which have reached the
general population -- because regular sex partners rarely use condoms
consistently. In comparison, faithfulness to one partner has worked at
reducing HIV prevalence in Uganda and Kenya, according to Halperin.
Because a person is more likely to transmit HIV during the first three
weeks of contracting the virus, an HIV-positive person who has just one
partner during that time is likely to pass the disease to that one
person. But if an HIV-positive person in the highly infectious stage has
many sexual partners at a time, "the virus spreads like wildfire" as
those people in turn have sex with other people, Halperin said. In
addition, circumcision has been shown to reduce male-to-female HIV
transmission by 60% to 75% (Goering, Chicago Tribune, 4/23). A study published in the November 2005 issue of PLoS Medicine
of men living in South Africa finds that male circumcision might reduce
the risk of men contracting HIV through sexual intercourse with women
by about 60%. Male circumcision might also reduce the risk of HIV
transmission from HIV-positive men to their female partners, according
to a study of couples in Rakai, Uganda (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 2/9). Poverty Reduction, Status Awareness
In addition, poverty does not appear necessarily to make a person more susceptible to HIV. "[C]ontrary to popular wisdom, as income levels go up in both men and women, we see higher rates of HIV," Halperin said, adding that people who make more money tend to have more sexual partners. Other HIV prevention methods such as encouraging people to know their status and treating secondary sexually transmitted infections also have not proven effective, Halperin said (Chicago Tribune, 4/23).
"Reprinted with permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.
In addition, poverty does not appear necessarily to make a person more susceptible to HIV. "[C]ontrary to popular wisdom, as income levels go up in both men and women, we see higher rates of HIV," Halperin said, adding that people who make more money tend to have more sexual partners. Other HIV prevention methods such as encouraging people to know their status and treating secondary sexually transmitted infections also have not proven effective, Halperin said (Chicago Tribune, 4/23).
"Reprinted with permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.
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