The most promising way to stem Africa's worst AIDS epidemics appears to be encouraging male circumcision and faithfulness to a single partner at a time, not promoting condom use or abstinence, a new look at AIDS studies across the continent suggests.
Condoms are rarely used by regular sex partners, who are involved in much of the spread of the disease in southern Africa, the region of the continent worst hit by AIDS, studies show. And abstinence campaigns appear to simply delay the infection of young people by a year or two, Daniel Halperin, a leading U.S. AIDS prevention expert, said in a provocative speech last week in Johannesburg.
But persuading people to have just one sex partner at a time and men to be circumcised could help end what Halperin called a "perfect storm" of the disease in southern Africa. Circumcision appears to cut HIV transmission by 60 percent to 75 percent.
