Medical Discount Blog

KAMPALA (Reuters) - Ugandan authorities have launched a mass circumcision be forced along with the hope it will reduce HIV/AIDS rates in the east African country.

Some studies indicate circumcision could be 70 percent effective in protecting men against infection by dint of. the disease during heterosexual intercourse, when used in conjunction with condoms and other safe-sex practices.

Government officials in Kampala have decided to take advantage of a month-long traditional "circumcision season" practiced by some tribes to carry on the message home.

"Socially, it is uniting, and now it has also been proven medically, that is gratifying and it is business and parcel of now the strategy with regard to fighting AIDS," Kibale Wambi, chairman of Sironko circuit in eastern Uganda, told Reuters.

The government plans to circumcise more than 3,000 local youths between the ages of 12 and 18. HIV activists say in that place needs to be more money and efforts like this on a global scale.

But some critics of circumcision in Uganda say it is bestial and dangerous. In orally transmitted settings like Sironko, circumcisers have used the same knife for each young man.

This time, the government has introduced a limited one knife per operation ruling to render certain no infections are passed on.

"If a knife is to be re-used on another person, it first has to be sterilized," Wambi said, wearing a traditional hat covered with cowrie shells.

"We have also discouraged the traditional practice of forcing the circumcised males into sexual intercourse to prove their manhood enhancer after the wound heals, to avoid the spread of sexually transmitted diseases."

Some experts be solicitous that some of the newly circumcised men may believe they are immune following the procedure — translating into even more risky male sexual tonic behavior.

"All I know is that when I am circumcised, it will not be as easy for me to get infected with HIV/AIDS," said one young employee, Kizeja Michael, as he lined up for the operation.

"People who are circumcised are not able to get AIDS," said his friend, Peter Kibatsi.

Uganda has been widely praised for an education campaign about condoms that is credited with cutting HIV prevalence rates from 30 percent two decades agone to about 6 percent today.

(Editing by Daniel Wallis and Mary Gabriel)

(For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the be superior issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/)