The recent preliminary clinical results on the spread of HIV/AIDS and circumcision have left more questions than answers.
It may also be sending a misleading picture particularly in societies with a low degree of civility.
Therefore, it is pertinent to know from the study whether the control group was involved with HIV-positive women, the frequency of sexual encounters and methods, the typology of HIV per experimental site, blood category, religious or cultural doctrines, level of education, urban or rural residents, conjugal rights between sexual partners, or whether either or both of the control and experimental groups altered their sexual behaviour after volunteering for the test.
I am unsure whether this was not a double-blind experiment.
While it states that the likelihood for HIV contracting-survival is about 50%, it does not reveal the significant variables constituting the unlikelihood for the rest of the percentages.
If the men’s foreskin harden after circumcision then what happens to the urethra or the mouth in cases of oral sex which is deemed safer in spite of the tissue similarities (the presence of HIV receptive cells)?
This is a dangerous revelation and must be treated with serious precautions otherwise it will promote ignorance on the utilization of existing HIV prevention measures and the whole of the African continent would be wiped out by the pandemic.
I think more pragmatic experiments or surveys could be carried out, for instance, to determine the variance in HIV/AIDS mortality and morbidity rates between the circumcised and uncircumcised men at the global scale in order to improve our confidence levels.
Namibia can recommend and start one than simply swallowing these findings.
P Muteyauli