At last, a painless tool for male cut

Mr Gibon Ogada, 46, has every reason to smile. His son has just undergone a safe and painless circumcision.

Eleven-year-old Job Ochieng’ used a new sterilised tool, now in the pharmaceutical market.

“I looked for an option that involved no open wounds, and had a shorter healing period, so he could return to playing as soon as possible,” Mr Ogada told the Nation at the Kenya Bureau of Standards offices on Tuesday.

Gurcharan Singh

Mr Ogada should thank Dr Gurcharan Singh, who devoted 20 years of his life to the development of the Tara-Klamp.

Dr Gurcharan had earlier come face-to-face with young boys suffering from horrible infections because of poorly performed circumcisions. He travelled around the world searching for better circumcision methods.

He found none, and concluded that a cleaner, safer method of circumcision had to be developed. In 1996, when he won a Gold Medal in Geneva, the whole world took notice of his simpler, hygienic and efficient way of circumcision.

Circumcision is generally performed either in a surgical theatre, at home or as in Kenya, in the bush. But it often comes with problems — infections, accidental amputations of the glans penis, and bleeding among others. Most of these problems occur because in all the circumcision methods so far, the operation is of invasive type.

Tara-Klamp, a relatively inexpensive plastic circumcision device, is designed for non-hospital environments. It is a single use sterilised tool that comes in all sizes from infant to adult. It was invented in Malaysia.

It works by clamping off the foreskin where it meets the shaft of the penis.

The two arms or levers of the clamp are brought closer to the locking mechanisms on the tube until two clicks are heard to ascertain that the locking is secure.

No dressings are applied, and under petroleum jelly lubricants and anaesthetic only, the device is locked in place, crushing a ring of tissue as well as cutting off blood supply to the foreskin, which is then painlessly cut off. The Tara-Klamp is left on for four to seven days.

The method reduces cross infections of say, HIV between circumciser and the circumcised in cultural rites.

However, in case the size is incorrect, the tight grip could result to injuries to the clamped part. It costs about Sh1,200 exclusive of other services like anaesthesia, which could easily double or even triple the cost, depending on the clinic.

On Tuesday, the national standards regulator said the approval for its use in government hospitals was at the final stages; private clinics already use Tara-Klamp.

Its chief supplier in Kenya, Bradmon Healthcare Limited, says men are warming up to the procedure, with 100 so far circumcised, mainly in Nyanza and Western provinces.

Researchers say male circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection by up to 60 per cent. So far, 60,000 Kenyans have been circumcised as part of HIV prevention.

The Kenya Aids Indicator Survey of 2007 puts the number of uncircumcised males aged 15-49 years at 1.2 million, with health officials estimating that for health impact in the prevention and control of HIV and Aids, at least 1.1 million of these people will have to be circumcised.

According to Mr Titus Oyoo, a Kebs officer, Tara-Klamp is undergoing final quality tests and is expected to be rolled out to public hospitals.

Common problems are prevented because the surgery is of non-invasive type, says Mr Charles Nyakure, a clinical officer who performs the procedure in his private clinic.

The procedure on Job was done on November 25, and the Tara-Klamp removed five days later, his father, Mr Ogada, said.