02 Mar 2017

The United States of America chief of Mission has yesterday encouraged boys from the ages of 15 and men to do the Safe Male Circumcision (SMC) procedure.

Speaking at the SMC re-launch campaign in Kanye on March 1, Mr Timothy Smith said SMC was beneficial to both men and women in the prevention of HIV/Aids.

Mr Smith explained that clinical studies have proved that SMC reduced the transmission of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) and Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV-2).

He said HPV was known to increase the risk of some forms of penile cancer in men and several types of cervical cancer in women.

He said cervical cancer remained the most deadly type of cancer to Batswana women.

To that end, Mr Smith shared that through PEPFAR the US government has financed the local SMC campaign for over US$33 with technical assistance for nine years.

Mr Smith also revealed that the US Department of Defence continued to support Botswana Defence Force’s HIV/AIDS programme which consisted of circumcision, HIV testing, condom distribution and peer education activities.

Mr Smith said the SMC mobile campaign which ended October 2016 yielded 23 000 circumcisions nation-wide over a period of 12 months at a lower cost.

He attributed the turn- around to different partners who were all active throughout the campaign.

However, Mr Smith argued that it was imperative to give SMC prominence adding they had yet to reach the 80 per cent target.

He attributed the failure to low demand for the procedure among young men over 15 years of age.

Meanwhile, he said the technical team has carried out studies to determine the reasons for the low demand for the procedure in order to provide insight on how to appeal to different audiences and find ways to make it as client-friendly as possible. ENDS