According to David Mutambara, the Executive Director for Zimbabwe Business Council on AIDS, the services that are currently being offered at designated hospitals around the country will take place in companies free of charge.
Mutambara said that in its discussions with ZBCA, PSI indicated that they would provide capacity training for visiting doctors on male circumcision, as well as train peer educators.
The campaign will run from November 21 to December 17, 2011. However, these services will continue to be available after the campaign period. Circumcision has been proven as an important method of preventing new infections in negative people by a factor of up to 60%.
Private sector companies have been scaling up efforts to fight the HIV and AIDS pandemic by initiating policies and programmes meant to reduce the impact of the pandemic on their businesses.
Some of the companies included in the initiative include Hippo Valley states, OK Zimbabwe, Colcom Foods and British American Tobacco.
Post published in: News
There is a saying which has some wisdom.
“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is (too good to be true).
The figures on circumcision are a lie. The people doing the studies in Africa are not who you think they are. Of the people most loudly announcing that circumcision is 60% effective, at least two of them are not even medical doctors. They have degrees, but not in medicine. The chief expert on circumcision for the World Health Organization, is the same doctor who invented multiple circumcision clamps. Is he going to tell you, “circumcision doesn’t work”? In the US, we buried many circumcised men who died of AIDS.
Condoms work. They protect both partners.
“Circumcision has been proven…”
Hardly. In three trials, less than two years after a total of 5,400 men were circumcised, 64 of them had HIV, 73 fewer than a similar group left intact. That is the whole basis of the claim. Contacts weren’t traced, so they don’t even know if all the infections were from women. 327 circumcised men dropped out, their HIV status unknown. So there are many reasons other than circumcision the infection of the 73 may have been delayed (not prevented).
“…as an important method of preventing new infections in negative people…”
No! Only negative MEN! The much greater risk of transmission from men to women may even be increased by circumcision, according to a curtailed study in Uganda (Wawer, et al. Lancet 374:9685, 229-37).
“… by a factor of up to 60%.” And down to zero. “Up to” is weasel wording, like the sales offering reductions of “up to” 50% (50% off what nobody wants). 60% is little better than adding the toss of a coin to your protection measures, with heads meaning you get away safe this time, and tails, the same risk as before. If someone sold condoms with a failure rate of 40%, they’d go to jail.
In Zimbabwe in 2005, USAID found 14.2% of non-circumcised men had HIV compared to 16.6% of circumcised men. In 10 of 18 countries for which it has figures, more of the circumcised men have HIV than the non-cirumcised. Shouldn’t this at least be explained before blundering on with mass circumcision programmes?