Male Circumcision and HIV infection in Swaziland: Is there an association?

HIV/AIDS is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. As number of new HIV infection continues to increase in the region, interventions to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS are needed especially in countries with high prevalence. Recent scientific evidence has shown that circumcision reduces HIV infection among heterosexuals. Swaziland is one of the countries with high HIV prevalence and low male circumcision rates. It is therefore important to examine the association between male circumcision and HIV infection in Swaziland.

The study used the 2006/7 Swaziland Demographic and Health Survey male and HIV datasets. Bivariate logistic regression was used to model the unadjusted, multivariate logistic regression was used to model adjusted association between MC and HIV infection. Results show that out of 2479 respondents that constituted the analysis sample, 91% were uncircumcised and HIV positive, while 8.9% were circumcised and HIV positive. Unadjusted results showed no association between circumcision status and HIV infection while adjusted results showed that male circumcision is protective against HIV infection. This suggests that male circumcision is not consistently associated with HIV infection in the studied population. Implications of the findings are discussed.