By Julia Medew
Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald.com

…Alex Wodak, a physician who has worked on HIV since it was identified in the 1980s, has called for parents to be educated about the benefits of circumcision after research showed it reduced the likelihood of transmission between heterosexuals in Africa.

“This is an intervention which is effective, inexpensive, lifelong, safe and could dramatically alter the course of an epidemic,” said Dr Wodak, who is also director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney. “It’s been estimated by mathematical modelling that if the whole of Africa had high levels of male circumcision at the start of the AIDS epidemic, there would have been 5.7 million fewer cases of HIV alone.”

Although circumcision has become unfashionable and even considered child abuse in some circles, Dr Wodak said government departments and health professionals should encourage the circumcision of infant males in Australia as the number of heterosexual transmissions of HIV had increased in recent years.

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