Zambian reporter gets circumcised to fight AIDS

Lusaka: A southern African radio correspondent has been receiving a flood of text messages and cell phone calls some from offended listeners and readers.

The response isn’t to a story on politics, corruption or soccer - all topics likely to elicit passionate responses. Rather, Zambia-based Kennedy Gondwe said in an interview on Friday, he is attracting attention because he chose to get circumcised as a way of protecting himself from AIDS, and took the British Broadcasting Corp’s radio and web audience through the procedure with him.

A study published in the Lancet medical journal in February concluded that the findings of three major trials - in Kenya, South Africa and Uganda - show that circumcision can significantly reduce men’s chances of contracting the virus that causes AIDS. Frank talk about AIDS, and about prevention methods, is still rare in Zambia, where HIV prevalence is 16 per cent. That’s what made Gondwe’s public testimony even more striking.

A prominent Zambian journalist, Mildred Mpundu, died in November after going public with her HIV-positive status earlier this year and urging her fellow journalists to get tested.

Gondwe, a 27-year-old who says he undergoes an AIDS test several times a year, said he finds it “sad” that more people don’t talk about circumcision as a prevention method.

“We as journalists also have a role to play in the fight against the disease,” he said.

Source: mumbaimirror.com