Village Head, Alphonce Singade expresses a point during a community dialogue
BY MUNYARADZI BLESSING DOMA
While Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC) has been scientifically proven to be a crucial HIV prevention strategy, limited knowledge is emerging to be a significant factor in its low uptake.
Several conspiracy theories were laid bare during a community dialogue in Gokwe Midlands Province, where several men, revealed reasons why they were against the idea.
Some felt though they were still sexually active, they had since passed the age for being circumcised.
Others doubted that they were would still enjoy sex after the medical procedure, while some revealed that they cannot allow to have their removed foreskins sold to other people.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), VMMC reduces female to male HIV transmission risk by 60 percent.
It is further reported that since 2007, VMMC has been scaled up in 15 priority Eastern/Southern African countries, with over 27 million procedures performed through 2019.
And it is considered a vital, safe and cost effective intervention.
However for those men in Gokwe, there was more to circumcision that they had been made aware of.
Some believed that the disadvantages outweigh the benefits.
“At my age you cannot expect me to get circumcised; I’m now too old for that. Haa hazvigone.
“It is not every time that I have sex so there is no need for that,” argued one elderly man, Sorobi Sikati.
Similar sentiments were also echoed by Village Head, Alphonce Singade, who revealed that there had been a lot of issues he had heard about circumcision.
“I have heard that when you are circumcised, you will not enjoy sex, so I think that needs to be clearly shared here.
“Because you may rush to get circumcised then the next thing you are having problems and you cannot reverse it, so we need to be told everything today.
“We also need to be told what happens to our foreskins when we are circumcised,” quizzed Singade.
video of community dialogue
Research done by Springer Nature Link revealed that while VMMC has increased significantly in many priority countries, a critical gap remains between awareness and action, often termed “a lag in demand” or “intention-action gap”.
It is added that “even when men are aware of VMMC, low uptake is driven by misconceptions, fear and cultural barriers.”
Some men in Gokwe even argued that once one in circumcised, there are risks of being infertile.
Nomatter Kamudande
Nomatter Kamudande, the Gokwe South HIV Focal Person and Community Nurse, speaking after the community dialogue at Katema Clinic, bemoaned the huge information gap.
“There is a huge information gap, so we need more of these community dialogues, like we did today.
“And we need one specifically for VMMC so that we dispel all issues they may have and also to tell them of the benefits.
“The benefits are many not just reducing chances of getting HIV, also reducing cervical cancer in women and even smartness, so we really need to upscale such awareness meetings on VMMC,” said Kamudande.
According to the Zimbabwe National HIV and AIDS Strategic Plan 2021-2025, the programme objective was to increase male circumcision coverage among those aged 10-29 years to 90 percent by 2025.
And since the country adopted VMMC in 2009, more than 1,67 million males had been circumcised by 2019.
It was further added that in order to increase demand for male circumcision, it is done through community dialogues, village health workers, circumcised men, school health coordinators, chiefs and at sports galas,
While funding challenges were likely to dampen progress made in VMMC as revealed by Midlands Provincial Medical Director Dr Mary Muchekeza, something also needs to be addressed, the huge information gap as observed in Gokwe during the community dialogue.
And it is not only for those men in Gokwe, but many others who still have questions on this medical procedure.
