Nearly 18.6 million men and boys were circumcised from 2008 to 2017 in the 14 priority countries in eastern and southern Africa, the World Health Organization reports in its annual progress brief. Those voluntary medical male circumcisions (VMMCs) had already averted an estimated 230,000 new HIV infections by 2017 and were projected to prevent more than 1 million HIV infections by 2030—an estimate that does not include the additional HIV infections that will be averted by VMMCs performed after 2017.
The annual number of VMMCs exceeded 4 million in 2017, as men accepted and acted to benefit from a package of male circumcision services that also includes safer sex education, condom provision and promotion, and the offer of HIV testing and counselling. The brief highlights the progress that programmes have made in increasing the uptake of VMMC and its impact. It includes a graph and a table presenting the numbers of VMMCs performed by country. This brief is also available on the WHO AFRO website.
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