Medical male circumcision gets major US boost
JOBURG – Medical male circumcision has received a major financial injection from the US government.
South Africa’s campaign for medical male circumcision has received a major financial injection when the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) committed to provide US $24 million (about R336 million) to accelerate the circumcision programme over the next five years.
Medical male circumcision has been widely promoted as a way to curb the HIV infection rate as it has been proven to reduce a man’s lifetime risk of HIV acquisition through heterosexual sex by up to 60 per cent. In a country that has nearly 7 million people living with HIV, circumcision cannot be ignored.
Rachael Rawlinson, chief operations officer at CareWorks said their funding would be allocated to areas such as KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Gauteng where the need was greatest and risk, high.
Rawlinson said CareWorks, the Department of Health and other medical male circumcision partners have made a tremendous difference to the lives of the more than 2.3 million men who opted to be circumcised.
“Soon SA will reach a point where people on antiretroviral treatment will outstrip new HIV infections, which signifies a turning point in the HIV epidemic. Male circumcision plays a critical role in reaching this turning point and will continue to show public health benefits for years to come,” Rawlinson said.
CareWorks HIV Management, established in 2004, is a South African healthcare company which specialises primarily in managing HIV/Aids in the workplace and treating HIV-positive people on behalf of employers and medical insurers.
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