From the Washington Post:
Men with HIV who get circumcised hoping they will be less likely to transmit the AIDS virus may have a greater-than-normal risk of infecting their partners if they resume sexual activity too soon after the operation.
That observation — drawn from preliminary analysis of a study in Uganda — threatens to complicate efforts to tout circumcision as a new weapon against HIV in Africa.
Specifically, it suggests that public health campaigns promoting circumcision must also include messages, directed principally at women, warning of the extreme hazard of intercourse with HIV-positive men who have just had the procedure.
The new data were presented yesterday to 75 government health ministers, scientists and policymakers from the World Health Organization and the U.N. AIDS program, and other experts meeting in Montreux, Switzerland, to develop guidance on using circumcision as a prevention measure.
Three studies, including two published last month, show that circumcision lowers a man’s risk of acquiring HIV infection by half — protection roughly equivalent to a moderately effective vaccine.
Researchers hope it might indirectly protect women as well. That could happen because circumcised men are less likely to have genital ulcers, which increase an infected person’s risk of transmitting the virus. More broadly, if circumcision reduces HIV prevalence in a whole population, both sexes will benefit.
See related post: Circumcision’s Anti-AIDS Effect.