Male circumcision can be seen as a surgical vaccine

According to a new study St Vincent’s Hospital Alcohol and Drug Service, Australia, male circumcision can be seen as a “surgical vaccine” in the fight against heterosexual HIV transmission and against a wide variety of infections and adverse medical conditions over a lifetime.

Study authors explained that a wealth of research has shown that the foreskin is the entry point that allows HIV to infect men during intercourse with an infected female partner. Soon after the HIV pandemic was first recognized, much lower HIV prevalence was found in areas of sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 80 per cent of males had been circumcised than in areas where the circumcision rate was less than 20 per cent.

The study, published in the Medical Journal of Australia,  is based on spread of the virus in Africa showed that there was a reduced rate of transmission in regions where male circumcision was the norm.