Researchers Find Link Between Decreased HIV Infection and Circumcised Men

Baltimore, MD (AHN) – Researchers have found a link between decreased risk of HIV infection and circumcision in men. A medical team assessing the link determined the decreased risk is not a result of a reduction in sores from conditions such as herpes as some had previously thought.

During two clinical trials including more than 5,000 men in rural Uganda, which had shown that circumcision reduced the risk of HIV infection in men by about 60 percent researchers went further to see what factors associated with that reduction in risk.

A team led by Ron Gray of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health investigated whether infection with HSV-2, the virus that causes genital herpes, and whether genital ulcers of any cause, could account for the lower rates of HIV infection in the circumcised study participants.

They found that reduction in symptomatic genital ulcer disease accounted for only about 10 percent of the protective effect associated with circumcision. According to their analysis the results indicate that most of the reduction in HIV acquisition provided by male circumcision may be explained by the removal of vulnerable foreskin tissue containing HIV target cells.