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World Health Organisation (WHO) researchers and colleagues on Monday reported that male circumcision could prevent millions of new HIV infections, but warned against risky sexual behaviour.
Analysing data from several trials showing that circumcised men had lower chances of contracting HIV, the scientists were able to calculate that if all men were circumcised over the next 10 years, some two million new infections could be avoided.
Last year Dr Bertran Auvert of the French National Research Agency and his peers at WHO found that circumcised men in South Africa were 65 percent less likely to become infected, and this result appeared to repeat itself in parts of Africa where men were routinely circumcised.
"In West Africa, male circumcision is common and the prevalence of HIV is low, while in southern Africa the reverse is true," they wrote in their report published in the latest edition of the Public Library of Science Medicine, an online journal.
However, the experts warned that while male circumcision could reduce infection rates, it could not bring the AIDS pandemic in Africa under control all by itself, and modifications in sexual behaviour were also needed.
Access the latest report: http://medicine.plosjournals.org/
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