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Developments:
In the ongoing battle against HIV/AIDS, probably more significant than the big Toronto AIDS conference next week is the discovery that male circumcision reduces the risk of HIV transmission from women to men by 60%.
The effect is so large that it could explain the mysterious gap between infection rates in West Africa (where many men are circumcised and HIV prevalence is relatively low) and Southern and East Africa (where few are circumcised and infection rates are soaring). According to Richard Feachem of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, "Other things being equal, in a circumcised population you have a low and slowly developing epidemic and in an uncircumcised population you have a high and fast developing epidemic."
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