May 22, 2015
FHI 360 in collaboration with WHO, UNAIDS and AVAC have announced the upgrade of the Clearinghouse on Male Circumcision for HIV Prevention website — a collaborative effort between these organisations. The new design comes with enhanced form and functionality that will ensure more user-friendly navigation, a modern look, an enhanced search function, an interactive map and a new resources library among other things. Please visit www.malecircumcision.org!
Since its creation in 2009, the Clearinghouse has been an important platform for the generation and sharing of information and resources with the international public health community, civil society groups, health policy makers and program managers involved in efforts to scale-up voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) for HIV prevention.
VMMC is one of the most powerful and cost-effective HIV prevention tools at hand. Studies from 2005 showed that it reduces a man’s risk of acquiring HIV from a female partner by up to 60 percent, increasing to around 75 percent over time. VMMC is now being rolled out for HIV prevention in 14 sub-Saharan African countries with high HIV prevalence and low levels of adult male circumcision with the goal of achieve 80 percent coverage among men in these countries in order to avert 3.4 million new HIV infections and save US$16.6 billion in future healthcare costs.