AIDS Society of the Philippines BLOG

AIDS Society of the Philippines, Inc (ASP) now has a new blog. Visit: www.aidsphil.blogspot.com.

Male circumcision doesn't affect women's HIV risk

Male circumcision has “little influence” on a woman’s HIV risk, according to a study conducted in Uganda and Zimbabwe published in the August 20th edition of AIDS. However, the study did show that women with high levels of sexual risk were slightly less likely to contract HIV if their partners were circumcised, and the investigators suggest that this finding should be explored in further studies.

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US anti-prostitution pledge affecting HIV prevention

The US government’s “Anti-Prostitution Pledge” is restricting HIV prevention programmes for those it seeks to protect, according to a new review of US HIV/AIDS funding. In January 2003 US president George Bush announced $15 billion [US dollars] would be made available for programs to tackle the HIV/AIDS epidemic. But in order to receive these funds organisations must show they have policies that explicitly oppose prostitution and sex trafficking. This so-called "anti-prostitution pledge" might be creating more problems than it solves, according to an analysis published in the journal PLoS Medicine written by Chris Beyrer, director of the Center for Public Health and Human Rights at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, together with the centre’s senior research coordinator Nicole Franck Masenior.

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