Circumcision booms in Kenya
- Posted on Friday 26 September 2008 - 10:52Joseph Appiah-Dolphyne, AfricaNews editor in Accra, GhanaKenya government hopes to circumcise two million people in the Luo province where the practice is abhorred. Top politicians from the area confessed they have gone to have the foreskin of their male organs removed as part of an awareness to curb HIV/AIDS. They spoke to spur people on to go and circumcise.
Standing before an audience of 500 in the western city of Kisumu, including Prime Minister Raila Odinga, three government ministers and an MP said they had secretly undergone the operation, the BBC reported.
Medical researchers contend that it reduces the risk of HIV infection among men, but have maintained that using condoms is far more effective. It is reported that five other MPs of Kenya have pledged their intention to have a circumcision - after seeking medical advice - as part of a push to promote the culturally taboo practice.
The prevalence of HIV/AIDS is high in the Luo community and the government has recently introduced a programme to promote the practice to curb the spread of Aids.
Unlike the nearby Luhya community, who last month turned out in large numbers to undergo circumcision in an annual festival, removing the foreskin is not performed as rite of passage amongst the Luo.
The politicians said they feared losing their post, but have received an unflinching support from their colleagues – including Odinga’s brother, an assistant minister who agreed to undergo the procedure. It is seen as a boost for the Luos to support circumcision.
Support
Hundreds of young men have begun to turn up for circumcision at public and private hospitals. Robert Ogol, a youth counsellor, is one who has snubbed the advice. He accused the community's elders of being afraid of change and said young men should be allowed to make their own decision about the practice.
"I got circumcised while I was already married. Since I got circumcised, even my wife can tell you that she is very comfortable," he said. At the Lumumba Health Centre in Kisumu, more than 80 medical practitioners have already received training.
"We are teaching young men and older people about circumcision. They usually come for circumcision of their own free will," says Wycliffe Omondi, one of the doctors providing training at the centre.
Statistics
Nearly 1,000 men have been circumcised since March and medical workers receive two days of training, he said. However, the Luo Council of Elders is not convinced that circumcision lowers the risk of infection. "I don't think it will be a solution to fight the spread of Aids," said Joe Asila, a pastor and Luo elder. "Other communities practise circumcision, but there is still a high prevalence of HIV/Aids," he said.
Meanwhile, the practice is catching up well in Malawi where hundreds of men are reported queuing at medical centres to be circumcised.
Reactions
- Posted on Saturday 27 September 2008 00:42While they are teaching men about circumcision, I wonder how much time they spend on the 20,000 lost pleasure-receptive nerve endings, the foreskin's wonderful protection for the glans and mucosa (keeping the surface smooth and moist and sensitive), and the exquisite frictionless rolling/gliding mode of intimate stimulation which the foreskin provides.
Foreskin feels REALLY good.
Most of the half-million US men who have died of AIDS were circumcised at birth. Circumcision does not prevent AIDS. - Posted on Sunday 28 September 2008 00:34I feel compelled to add a note of caution to those who read this article because it is not the case that all medical researchers consider that circumcision will reduce the transmission of HIV/AIDS. A growing number of experts in the field are horrified that Africa is being circumcised as a way of reducing HIV transmission. The situation in the US of America, a country in which approximately 85-90% of the sexually active adult males are circumcised has the highest rate of HIV transmission in the Western world. If circumcision really reduced HIV transmission America would have the lowest, not the highest, rates in the Western world.
Sexually transmitted HIV is spread as a result of men and women having sexual relationships with infected partners, whereas sex between people who are clear of HIV can’t result in either partner contracting HIV. The more sexual partners someone has, the greater the odds of them encountering one with HIV, and so the best way to prevent sexually transmitted HIV is to remain faithful to one partner who is clear of it. Those who cannot manage this should wear condoms. Sexually transmitted HIV is a result of what people do in terms of sexual behaviour and surely this is where prevention strategies should be targeted? Please note that male circumcision isn’t said to convey any protection for women.
The degree to which those in favour of circumcision claim it will reduce the transmission of HIV is not at all easy to understand: especially when the supposed benefit is equated to the efficiency of a vaccine. My own informal research shows that in a sample of approximately 40 medical professionals in the UK there is surprisingly little agreement on the matter.
Furthermore, God gave man a foreskin for good reasons. It is highly vascular and densely packed with neuro receptors and as such is a refined and sensitive part of the penis. Its removal makes the penis less sensitive to the erogenous sensations of pre-orgasmic intercourse. Without the full range of sensations that the foreskin is there to produce, the man has to work harder and longer to achieve orgasm: an activity that is nowhere as fulfilling as is sex with a complete penis. What is more, the foreskin has a range of specific mechanical functions, one of which is the retention of the natural female vaginal lubrication within the vagina, thus removing the need for expensive and hard to acquire artificial lubricants. Research by O’Hara shows that sexual intercourse with a circumcised penis is less pleasurable for women. Another consequence of circumcision is that the glans of the penis gradually becomes keratinized - its surface becomes thickened or toughened - such that it is less capable of perceiving sensation, especially during sexual intercourse. This toughening increases with age and gradually reduces the capacity for sexual fulfilment.
It is important to add that HIV can also be transmitted through the use of dirty needles whether in hospitals or used by intravenous drug users. It is also the case that a great many medical complications, some leading to death, are caused by the use of non sterile ‘instruments’ during circumcision. My reading of currently available information, sourced from the internet, suggests that more people in Africa have died or had severe medical complications as a result of circumcision than are likely to have been saved from HIV/AIDS. Sadly, a growing number of children are born HIV positive as a result their mother’s carrying the virus. The co-infectors, malaria and TB, also present serious problems with regard to HIV and should not be sidelined. The custom of inheriting the wife of a brother or a relative on the death of a husband means that the wife is likely to be HIV positive if her husband died from AIDS and that the man inheriting her is likely to become HIV positive too. Addressing problems such as these is likely to result in a much greater reduction in the transmission of HIV than removing the foreskins of Africa.
Laurie Milner (UK)
Independent Researcher into the role, function and health of the foreskin. - Posted on Sunday 28 September 2008 14:18Having just returned from an international conference on the physical, sexual and emotional effects of circumcision i cannot believe that there are people on this planet who would advocate circumcision as a preventative of HIV infection. Those doing so are misinformed and uneducated in this area as there is no peer reviewed evidence that circumcision prevents HIV in fact ithere is evidence that the reverse is the case.
Promoting circumcision to the underdevloped world is dangerous and attempt to export bad medicine as it declines in western societies and regulation to end this pratice is underway.
Linda Massie
National Organisation Circumcision Information Resource Centre of Northern Ireland - Posted on Monday 29 September 2008 01:00When these millions of men who have been persuaded to be circumcised discover that they can still catch HIV and can still pass it to others and that they have lost the most valuble part of their penis unecessarily there are going to be a lot of extremely angry young men about. Peter Ball
- Posted on Wednesday 01 October 2008 17:38Robert Ogol says in the main article, that young men should be allowed to make their own decision about the practice.
I would like to ask him if he is sure that his decision was based on factual information, as a growing number of research experts in the field of HIV/AIDS are unconvinced that circumcision is a solution to the spread of this disease.
Be aware that circumcision is an irreversible procedure. It involves the removal of the most sensitive part of the penis, causing loss of sensation that becomes more pronounced with advancing age.
Be aware Circumcision will not protect against HIV/AIDS. Only by abstaining from sex, having sex with someone you can trust who is HIV negative, or wearing a condom, will prevent the spread of Aids. - Posted on Friday 06 February 2009 13:36If circumcision is so effective, then why are there six African countries where the circumcised men in those countries are more likely to be HIV+ than the intact men in those countries?
HIV doesn't infect people randomly. Circumcision can only possibly help men who have unsafe sex with HIV+ partners, so why this bizarre obsession with genital surgery when we know that ABC works better than circumcision ever could? (ABC=Abstinence, Being Faithful, Condoms).
The studies which allegedly show a reduction in HIV among circumcised men are highly questionable. Not one of them was finished, despite the protective affect appearing to decline well below the oft-reported 65%, and several of the subjects disappeared. The fact that one study described circumcision as "equivalent" to a "vaccine of high efficacy" seems to show clear bias. They appear to have been seeking a certain result. One has to wonder how many of the people promoting circumcision in Africa are themselves circumcised. Many of them have been promoting circumcision for years for a variety of different reasons.
Other epidemiological studies have shown no correlation between HIV and circumcision, but rather with the numbers of sex workers, or the prevalence of "dry sex".
The two continents with the highest rates of AIDS are the same two continents with the highest rates of male circumcision. Rwanda has almost double the rate of HIV in circumcised men than intact men, yet they've just started a nationwide circumcision campaign. Other countries where circumcised men are *more* likely to be HIV+ are Cameroon, Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, and Tanzania. Something is very wrong here. These people aren't interested in fighting HIV, but in promoting circumcision (or sometimes anything-but-condoms), and their actions will cost lives.
Circumcised male virgins are more likely to be HIV+ than intact male virgins, as the operation sometimes infects men.
The latest news is that circumcised HIV+ men are more likely to transmit the virus to women than intact HIV+ men (even after the healing period is over). Eight additional women appear to have been infected during that study, solely because their husbands were circumcised.
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