Gates lauds Kenyan programme

Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates urged African countries to emulate Kenya’s successful voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) programme in Nyanza to reduce HIV infections, an article in The Star (Nairobi) reports. Speaking at the 21st International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, he called VMMC the “single most powerful one-time intervention” for HIV prevention. After launching its VMMC programme in 2008 with the aim of circumcising 860,000 men by 2013, Kenya achieved 71 percent of that goal and surpassed its target in the Nyanza region, where most of the implementation took place. “Kenya has shown how a country with a well-organised programme that includes sufficient funding, data analysis, and myth-busting campaigns can achieve its targets for voluntary medical male circumcision,” he said (The Star, 21 July 2016).