Antiretrovirals and condoms will have more effect on HIV in south Africa than circumcision, model finds.

From the IAS Conference in Cape town South Africa July 19-22, 2009.

In preliminary results from a mathematical model set up by researchers from the British Columbia Center for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, male circumcision was found to have a considerable lower impact than condom use or antiretroviral therapy coverage on new HIV infection rates and on death rates in men in South Africa.

This finding support the concept that in countries with high prevalence of HIV+ people that treating people not infected with HIV with antiretroviral therapy is the best way of preventing HIV, not microbicides not vaginal barriers, not condoms, not circumcision, and not the behaviorally unusable concept of abstinence.