Summary: Circumcision May Reduce Risk of HIV Infection for Some, But Not For Americans

Circumcision reportedly reduces the risk of HIV infection by half for adult males in Kenya and Uganda. The findings, which only apply to heterosexual transmission of HIV from women to men, will have less impact in the United States.

• According to a recent article written by the Los Angeles Times, a new study was conducted among nearly 8,000 adult males in Kenya and Uganda. This study reportedly showed that circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection by half. The findings, which only apply to heterosexual transmission of HIV from women to men, will have less impact in the United States, where 80% of males are circumcised and homosexual contact between men still plays a major role in transmission of the virus. But they could have a major effect in the rest of the world, where heterosexual contact is the major form of transmission. However, experts cautioned that circumcision does not eliminate risk. The procedure “has to be integrated with all the other things that we do to prevent new HIV infections,” said epidemiologist Robert Bailey of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who led the Kenya study. Circumcision rates vary widely in Africa. The average is just over 60% for the entire continent, but less than 20% in South Africa, where the AIDS epidemic is most severe. According to Dr. Kevin DeCock, director of the World Health Organization’s department of HIV/AIDS, circumcision is “not a magic bullet but it has the potential to prevent many hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of infections over coming years.¹

¹Circumcision Found to Lower HIV Risk, Los Angeles Times, December 14, 2006.