A progress brief from the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that nearly 15 million men and boys were circumcised from 2008 to 2016 by HIV prevention programmes implementing voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) as part of a combination prevention package in 14 priority countries in eastern and southern Africa. In the ten years since the WHO and UNAIDS recommendation on VMMC for HIV prevention, these programmes have demonstrated that this one-time efficacious intervention is feasible to scale up and is reaching men with VMMC and other HIV prevention services.
The WHO update reveals that the annual number of VMMCs increased by 9 percent, to 2.8 million in 2016. The number of men and boys receiving VMMC services increased in all but two of the priority countries, and four countries surpassed or nearly achieved their goals for VMMC set in 2011. It is estimated that the 14.54 million male circumcisions performed by the end of 2016 will avert more than half a million HIV infections by 2030.
Preview