The ethical concerns of using medical male circumcision in HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

This position paper seeks to explore the ethical concerns surrounding the use of medical male circumcision as an effective method of preventing HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa. The study explores research that looked at the effectiveness of medical male circumcision in clinical trials. While clinical trials reveal that medical male circumcision showed statistically significant results in HIV prevention, there is still a paucity of studies that take into consideration the ethical challenges posed by medical male circumcision in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper argues that rolling out medical male circumcision to the larger community without adequately addressing the ethical concerns could weaken programme initiation, implementation and evaluation in sub-Saharan Africa.