According to daily Monitor More than four million men are expected to undergo Safe Male Circumcision (SMC) countrywide within a period of five years as one of the strategies to prevent HIV infections, the Ministry of Health has said.
Dr Michael Muyonga from the AIDS Control Programme in the ministry, said the country records 140,000 new HIV/Aids infections annually a figure that must be dealt with.
“Although the government launched the SMC in 2010, we have been registering a low number of men turning up for circumcision country wide and we intend to intensify the exercise,” Dr Muyonga said.
He made the remarks in Lira Town recently during an orientation workshop for media practitioners in Lango sub-region.
The appeal
“We have not yet realised the desired targets and require more involvement of all the key stakeholders for the success of the SMC programme,” said Dr Muyonga.
A male circumcision technical advisor with Northern Uganda Health Integration to Enhance Services (NU-HITES), Dr Leonard Were, said they have targeted more than 500,000 men in northern Uganda in five years.
“Our target is to provide 100,000 male circumcisions per year over a period of five years,” he said, adding that over 150,000 men have been circumcised in the region since 2012.