What is it about?
Early resumption of sexual activity after voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) is declining among males aged 15-49 years in Uganda. This is what we found; The percentage of people experiencing early sex resumption (ESR) after circumcision significantly decreased from 45.1% in 2013 to 14.9% in 2020. Married participants were more likely to experience ESR compared to those who were never married. People with more than one sexual partner were more likely to experience ESR than those with only one partner. Participants with only primary education were more likely to experience ESR compared to those with higher education. Older participants (45 years and above) were less likely to experience ESR compared to younger participants (15-19 years).
Featured Image
Why is it important?
In order to achieve HIV epidemic control by 2030, Voluntary medical male circumcision is one of the key interventions for HIV prevention. It is recommended that after circumcision, men are supposed to abstain from sex for about 6 weeks/42 days to allow complete wound healing but if men resume sex early before this period then it will instead exacerbate their risk of HIV acquisition. Therefore, we studied this problem in the Rakai, Uganda using the population based longitudinal data to show trend of early sex resumption following circumcision from 2013-2020.
Perspectives
In my opinion, I think implementing partners doing HIV programming should quickly utilize this information to improve their VMMC programing to align circumcision activities and should target men with the following characteristics; married, those with more than one sexual partner, and those with lower education levels (primary and below).
Alex Daama
Makerere University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Population-based cohort data used to assess trends in early resumption of sexual activity after voluntary medical male circumcision in Rakai, Uganda, PLOS One, November 2024, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0297240.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
