here your doctor

Circumcision made men into adulthood greatly reduces the risk of infection by the AIDS virus (HIV), according to a study published on the website of Inserm.

It has been demonstrated in a randomized controlled trial that circumcision performed in adulthood greatly reduced in men the risk of HIV infection.

This test, conducted in South Africa with more than 3,000 men, was presented at the 3rd Conference of the International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment, held in Rio de Janeiro.

Several observational studies have already suggested the existence of a beneficial effect of male circumcision on the risk of HIV transmission. But these studies were not randomized and therefore not possible to prove a causal link between circumcision and HIV infection.

In this study conducted in the province of Gauteng in South Africa between 2002 and 2005, young male volunteers, aged 18-24 years, were randomized into two groups: the first was the subject of circumcision, unlike the second. Information on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections was provided to participants throughout the study and condoms were provided to both groups.

The results show that the number of people infected during the trial proved three times lower in the first group (circumcised) in the second (uncut), 18 versus 51 infections. In the light of these data, the independent committee monitoring the trial recommended that it be stopped and that circumcision is also available to participants uncircumcised group.

Other studies are being conducted in several African countries and their expected results.

The long-term effect of male circumcision should be better studied, because the mechanisms that could explain the observed protection remain unexplained to this day. Furthermore, the significant decrease in the risk of contamination by circumcision found in this study was obtained under experimental conditions carefully framed: Information on prevention, provision of condoms, medical practice act. The risk is probably higher in real life, say the researchers from Inserm 687 in France, as well as the National Institute for Communicable Diseases and Progressus Company in South Africa.

According to them, public health authorities will in turn, initiate a discussion on the use across the population, circumcision as a means of prevention, so that it does not work 100 %.

Prevention campaigns on a large scale to the population, including aspects of information, education and condom use should be in any case considered intensively, they conclude in a statement released to the press.