Despite the fact that Male Medical Circumcision-MMC is one of the methods being implemented to scale down the HIV/Aids infection across the country, fishermen in Kalangala district have shunned the operation. Scientific studies have shown that MMC reduces the chances of HIV/Aids and other sexually transmitted disease infection by 60 percent. Early 2012, Minister of Health launched a massive MMC exercise across the country to combat the rate of HIV/ Aids infection.
In Kalangala, about 100 men underwent the MMC operation shortly after the program was launched but suddenly stopped.John Baptist Kawoya, Kalangala District Health Educator explains that they extended the campaign of MMC to the Islands but men there have shunned it. He says that they decentralized the exercise to villages through routine visits but the health workers wait for the men to turn up for circumcision in vain.
Kawoya says that the exercise ran into trouble when they refused to give some of the men who underwent circumcision their foreskins because it is unethical. He says that some of the men then decided to decampaign the MMC campaign, which has stalled it. He says that they are worried of the failure of the program because the HIV/AIDS prevalence in the district is high, adding that several people are infected daily.
Dr Edward Muwanga, Kalangala District HIV/Aids focal person also says that the few people they handled also failed to comply with instructions they were given before undergoing circumcision, exposing them their lives to great danger. He says that after circumcision each of the men was advised to abstain from sex for six weeks to heal properly but some of the men resumed sex within two weeks.
He says that as a result, some of the men sustained injuries on the skin while other developed serious complication that exposed them to pelvic cancer. Muwanga says that they are now stuck because most men have development of MMC yet they were hopeful that the program would reduce HIV infection in the district. He says that they have tried several approaches including convening village meetings to lure back the men to accept MMC in vain.
Muwanga says that they are now planning to consult ministry of Health to see if it can adjust the procedures to meet the demands of residents to allow the exercise continue. John Kalema, a resident of Bugoma Village in Mugoye Sub County says he shunned MMC after the health officials failed to explain to them where they would take their foreskins after circumcision. He says that most of the men feared to become impotent after the MMC, adding that they also found it difficult to abstain from sex for six weeks.
