Global: Male circumcision – a gamble for women?

While researchers and advocates at the International AIDS Conference this week urged donors and governments to rapidly scale up male circumcision programmes, others raised concerns about what this would mean for women. In March 2007, the World Health Organisation and UNAIDS issued recommendations that gave the green light to male circumcision as an HIV prevention strategy, after studies in Kisumu, Kenya and the township of Orange Farm in South Africa showed that it could reduce the risk of infection by up to 60 percent.