Circumcised men less likely to get AIDS

Main Category: HIV / AIDS
Article Date: 26 Mar 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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Men who are circumcised have a lower chance of being infected with the virus that causes AIDS than men who are not. This is not due to any behaviour differences, it is due to biological reasons. This is according to scientists at John Hopkins University Medical School, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

Circumcised men are 6-8 times less likely to become HIV positive. People have never agreed on why this is so. Some said that it is because of behaviour differences. These scientists may have ended that controversy.

According to the scientists in this new study, if you are circumcised you will have more protection from HIV, but not other sexually transmitted infections. Risk rates for syphilis and gonorrhoea are the same.

You can read about this new study in The Lancet.

Dr. Robert Bollinger, lead researcher said "The specificity of this relation suggests a biological rather than behavioral explanation for the protective effect of male circumcision against HIV."

How common circumcision is depends on which part of the world. It is more common in the USA than other Christian countries, in India it is uncommon. Usually, circumcision is done for religious and cultural reasons.

Bollinger studied 2,298 men in India from 1993 to 2000. They were all attending STD clinics, none of them were HIV positive at the beginning of the study. They were regularly monitored to see whether they had developed HIV.

Bollinger said "These data confirm previous findings that male circumcision reduces the risk of HIV acquisition."

Bollinger says that as circumcision did not stop the men from catching other STIs (sexually transmitted infections), his study demonstrates the theory that protection from HIV is due to the removal of the foreskin. He says the foreskin contains cells that have HIV receptors. He suspects these receptors are the primary entry points for the virus into the penis.

Bollinger and his team would like to carry out clinical trials to see how effective and safe circumcision is as a tool against AIDS.

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