Male circumcision may not deter AIDS much

NEW YORK, June 21 (UPI) -- Male circumcision is found to be a much less important deterrent to the global AIDS pandemic than previously thought, says a U.S. researcher.

The study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, found that the number of infected prostitutes in a country is the key to explaining the degree to which AIDS has infected the general population.

Prostitute communities, typically infected with HIV, can act as an engine driving HIV infection rates because of their large number of sex partners, according to study author John R. Talbott.

Africa as a continent is experiencing an AIDS epidemic far in excess of any other region of the world and Talbott's study suggests the reason is that Africa has four times as many prostitutes as the rest of the word and they are more than four times as infected.

Some southern African countries have as many as 7 percent of their adult females infected and working as prostitutes, compared with less than .1 percent of infected prostitutes in the developed world, according to Talbott.

While male circumcision may reduce the risk of HIV transmission by some 50 percent to 60 percent in each sexual encounter, reducing single encounter transmission rates alone cannot control the epidemic, the study said.