HIV fight adds new tool to its arsenal

Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, August 15, 2006

TORONTO – Circumcision, which lowers a man’s risk of becoming infected with HIV, may soon join the growing arsenal of weapons against the AIDS epidemic. But to do so will require overcoming a unique set of obstacles, hazards, costs and enemies.

Wider use of the procedure would require persuading cultures that do not practice circumcision of its benefits at the same time that individual men would be advised not to count on it to protect them.

Delegates to the 16th International AIDS Conference debated some of those issues Tuesday, aware they won’t have to confront this issue until at least two more studies are completed.

Circumcision removes skin rich in Langerhans cells, particular targets of the AIDS virus.

AIDS researchers noticed as long ago as 1989 that tribes and communities practicing circumcision in Africa had lower rates of AIDS than noncircumcising ones, even when the two lived in the same area and intermingled.

A study in South Africa was stopped early and its findings released last summer when it found a 60 percent lower risk of HIV infection in the men who got the procedure.

The results of two more studies are expected in 2007 and 2008.