Bridging the divide on male circumcision in war on Aids

The decision by a cross-section of Luo Nyanza leaders to support the voluntary medical male circumcision has been hailed as a major breakthrough in the fight against Aids, which has devastated the region.

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This week, Prime Minister Raila Odinga led MPs, the Luo Council of Elders and other leaders to talk on male circumcision before they closed ranks.

The Monday meeting was the fourth in a series under the Nyanza Task Force on Male Circumcision and a research team of Prof Kawango Agot and Prof Jeremiah Achola Ndinya. The first three meetings made little headway.

The debate at one time threatened to tear apart the politicians. The Prime Minister supported the male cut for HIV prevention, while the Luo Council of Elders was bent on “preserving the culture”.

At the meeting, council chairman Ker Riaga Ogallo said the community had accepted to mobilise members to go for the cut, following the scientific evidence presented by medical experts to the effect that the strategy reduced by up to 60 per cent, the chances of contracting HIV.

Mr Odinga met the elders, MPs and medical experts in a bid to bridge the gap and reduce the confrontations that the leaders from the community have been having in public over the cut. He said: “I know circumcision will raise a lot of eyebrows.

But there is evidence that it reduces infection by as much as 60 per cent.”

Mr Odinga continued: “We must face the reality. We should not just say that it is not our culture. We should emphasise more on the reason we are doing it.”

He also said pushing for the cut without knowing HIV status was futile, arguing that local leaders needed to take the test in public as was done by the US Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama when he visited the country in 2006.

He said that although the Government had been promoting other aspects of the Aids war, inclusion of circumcision would boost those efforts. Not all, especially the youth, could use condoms and abstinence as control methods, he said.

Ker Ogallo has in the past stood his ground, saying the practice was not Luo culture and the community needed time to embrace it.

But on Monday, he stepped down from his hard-line stance and accepted the cut provided it was voluntary and for medical purposes, not a right of passage.

He said: “Aids is killing us and we are going to kill it. But do not kill our integrity. Don’t kill what makes us Luos.”

The PM said Nyanza Province still had the largest number of infections despite spirited campaigns against it. But he maintained that the push for circumcision was an individual issue rather than a communal affair.

The meeting held at the Tom Mboya Labour College in Kisumu saw presentations by medical experts who included Dr Rex Mpazanje, representing the World Health Organisation and UNAids, Prof Kawango Agot and Prof Ndinya Achola from the Kisumu Randomised Controlled Research and Prof Alloys Orago of National Aids/STIs Control Programme (Nascop).