A leading South African HIV/Aids expert on Saturday advocated male circumcision as the best available ”vaccine” against the virus in his country, where an estimated six million people are infected and more than 600 people die every day.
Francois Venter told a congress of health activists in the Treatment Action Campaign that a recent survey in the Soweto township indicated that circumcised men were 65% less likely to contract HIV/Aids than those who had not been circumcised.
”We dream of a vaccine which has this efficacy,” said Venter, clinical director of the Reproductive Health and HIV Research at the University of Witwatersrand. ”The results are phenomenal.”
He urged the Treatment Action Campaign, an influential movement of 13 000 activists, to consider promoting circumcision as a vital prevention tool, given that existing methods were failing to slow the spread of the epidemic.
South Africa has the one of the highest number of people living with HIV/Aids in the world. Nearly 30% of pregnant women are infected, according to a health department survey published in July, and in the hardest-hit province of KwaZulu-Natal this rises to 41%. The disease is now one of the main causes of death among young adults and infants.
Some traditional communities in South Africa practice circumcision, but there are calls for tighter medical controls to limit health risks from blunt and contaminated instruments.
”We don’t want our men to go to the chop shop but have medical circumcision,” said HIV/Aids activist leader Zackie Achmat, who said the congress — which meets every two years — would debate whether to encourage mass circumcision.
Achmat, who is HIV positive, said much more needed to be done on prevention. He said that even though government distribution of condoms increased from one million in 1994 to 40-million in 2004, this still only amounted to 35 condoms per sexually active male per year.
He said that 73% of young people without the virus believed that they were not at risk of catching it. More disturbingly, 62% of young people with the virus, also believed there was no risk.
Achmat lambasted the government’s record on treatment. An estimated 76 000 people are currently receiving anti-retroviral therapy through the public health sector, compared to the 500 000 who need it. The World Health Organisation has singled out slow progress in South Africa as one of the main reasons why it will likely miss its target of putting three million people worldwide on
therapy by the end of this year.
”We are dying. We are still dying,” he said.
Achmat has for years made virulent attacks against the government for doing too little too late against the HIV/Aids epidemic.
In a sign of the mutual antagonism, health ministry officials refused invitations to attend the congress.
”President Thabo Mbeki tragically still shows symptoms of Aids denialism,” said Achmat. Mbeki reputedly doubts the link between HIV and Aids. Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has repeatedly voiced doubts about the safety and efficacy of anti-retrovirals, instead stressing the benefits of a diet heavy in garlic, lemon and olive oil.
Achmat likened the ruling African National Congress to an ostrich.
”On HIV it is keeping its head in the sand,” he said.
The Soweto study, was conducted by French researchers between 2002 and 2005 with more than 3 000 healthy, sexually active males between 18 and 24.
About half the volunteers were circumcised by medical professionals, and the rest remained uncircumcised.
All of the men received counseling on HIV/Aids prevention. But after 21 months, 51 members of the uncircumcised group had contracted HIV, the Aids virus, while only 18 members of the circumcised group had gotten the disease.
The World Health Organisation and UNAids has given a cautious welcome to the results of the study, released at a conference in Brazil in July, but says that more trials should be conducted before circumcision can be recommended as a preventive method. A study conducted by the United States National Health Institute involving 5 000 individuals is currently under way in Uganda. – Sapa-AP