With many African countries including Malawi advocating for circumcision in the fight against HIV/Aids, a United States of America firm Intact America has petitioned governing bodies of Unaids and World Health Ogrnisation(WHO) to issue a statement that curcumcision does not prevent the transmission of the pandemic.

In a petition on its website www.intactamerica.org titled The world needs to know the truth:circumcision does not prevent Aids, addressed to UNAIDS Executive Director Michael Sidibe and WHO’s Director General Margaret Chan and signed by its Executive Director Georganne Chapin, the firm calls upon the two bodies to cease distributing misleading information about circumcision.

“Intact America calls upon the governing bodies of UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation to immediately issue a statement telling the public, and specifically those vulnerable to contracting HIV, that circumcision does not prevent the transmission of HIV. We demand that the funds allocated to promoting and carrying out circumcision be used instead for testing, education and treatment,” reads the statement.

The statement says the world needs to know that curcumsicion is not a vaccine and that men who are circumcised are still at risk of both contracting HIV from an infected female partner and transmitting HIV to a partner who is negative.

“Spending money on circumcision while people do not have access to medicines is unethical and endangers lives. Male curcumcision puts women at risk in that men with HIV who are circumcised may be 50 percent more likely to infect their partners,” says the statement.

According to the US firm, the mass male circumicision is being promoted as a method of curbing the HIV/Aids pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa including Malawi observing that circumcision is an expensive and risky procedure that was shown to reduce risk by 50-60 percent for heterosexual males only in three highly controlled, short term clinical trials.

Intact America further says that the results from the randomised clinical trials in Africa, showing the reduction in female to male transmission of HIV after circumcision has resulted in the promotion of the programme followed by mobilisation of vast sums of money from international health agencies and foundations to roll out mass surgical interventions in Africa.

“Some have proposed circmcising infants, but this too, has ethical ramifications. Removing healthy tissue from children deprives them of their right to autonomy. Surgery of any kind places them at risk from complications,” reads the statement.

The firm also cites a 2009 national household survey data from 18 countries including Malawi in which circumcision status was tracked, showed that HIV was higher in circumcised males for 10 to 18 countries.

“The business of male circumcision based on misleading messages has become a multi-billion dollar windfall for researchers, doctors, leaders in world health and manufacturers of circumcision equipment,” says Intact America.

It is not yet clear what UNAIDS and WHO, will do in response to the petition.