{"id":4006,"date":"2012-06-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-06-25T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/psi2030.wpengine.com\/in-zimbabwe-lawmakers-circumcised-in-anti-aids-drive\/"},"modified":"2018-05-22T22:24:42","modified_gmt":"2018-05-22T22:24:42","slug":"in-zimbabwe-lawmakers-circumcised-in-anti-aids-drive","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/fr\/news\/in-zimbabwe-lawmakers-circumcised-in-anti-aids-drive\/","title":{"rendered":"In Zimbabwe, Lawmakers Circumcised in Anti-AIDS Drive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.afp.com\">AFP<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>HARARE, June 22, 2012 \u2014 Male lawmakers in Zimbabwe underwent voluntary circumcision in a new public drive to curb the spread of HIV, which affects about one in 10 people in the southern African country. A handful of lawmakers stepped into a mobile clinic set up inside the parliament building to undergo the procedure carried out under local anaesthetic and using a new method that does not require downtime.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I feel proud now that I have accomplished what we set to accomplish,&#8221; Blessing Chebundo, a member of parliament from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai&#8217;s Movement for Democratic Change party, said minutes after he was circumcised. He was the first of a batch of lawmakers that lined up for the procedure.<\/p>\n<p>Speaker of parliament Lovemore Moyo said by going public about their testing and circumcision, the lawmakers were &#8220;leading by example&#8221;. Dozens of deputies and parliament staff on Thursday took HIV tests. Forty-four members of parliament have volunteered to be circumcised, in a campaign hoped to reach 1.2 million males by 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Population Services International, a US-based global health agency, is offering the testing and circumcision procedures. Medical research has shown male circumcision can reduce chances of HIV transmission by 60 percent. &#8220;If we can circumcise 1.2 million men by 2015 we can prevent 750,000 new cases of HIV, which means we can really start to envision a country in which there are no new HIV infections,&#8221; said the health agency&#8217;s director Louisa Norman.<\/p>\n<p>Zimbabwe has 1.1 million people living with HIV, including 150,000 children, according to the country&#8217;s National AIDS Council. In a rare open talk about the disease, President Robert Mugabe in March told parliament that some of his political allies had died of AIDS.<\/p>","protected":false},"template":"","related_practice_areas":[],"related_countries":[],"related_projects":[],"news_category":[],"health-area":[],"how-we-work":[],"class_list":["post-4006","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/4006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"related_practice_areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/related_practice_areas?post=4006"},{"taxonomy":"related_countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/related_countries?post=4006"},{"taxonomy":"related_projects","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/related_projects?post=4006"},{"taxonomy":"news_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_category?post=4006"},{"taxonomy":"health-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/health-area?post=4006"},{"taxonomy":"how-we-work","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/how-we-work?post=4006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}