Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision: A Cross-Sectional Study Comparing Circumcision Self-Report and Physical Examination Findings in Lesotho

Abstract

Background: Overwhelming evidence, including three clinical trials, shows that male circumcision (MC) reduces the risk of HIV infection among men. However, data from recent Lesotho Demographic and Health Surveys do not demonstrate MC to be protective against HIV. These contradictory findings could partially be due to inaccurate self-reported MC status used to estimate MC prevalence. This study describes MC characteristics among men applying for Lesotho Defence Force recruitment and seeks to assess MC self-reported accuracy through comparison with physical-examination-based data.

Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision: Modeling the Impact and Cost of Expanding Male Circumcision for HIV Prevention in Eastern and Southern Africa

“…There is some evidence that uncircumcised and partially circumcised men may report being circumcised in some populations [60]. Unfortunately, there is no information available on the prevalence of this phenomenon in the countries studied.…”

“…Another limitation is that we use pre-scale-up male circumcision coverage estimates based on men's self-reported circumcision status in household surveys. There is some evidence that uncircumcised and partially circumcised men may report being circumcised in some populations [60] . Unfortunately, there is no information available on the prevalence of this phenomenon in the countries studied.…”

Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision: An Introduction to the Cost, Impact, and Challenges of Accelerated Scaling Up

“…How many medical male circumcisions will need to be performed in the 13 priority countries for maximum impact? The first step towards answering this question is assessing baseline prevalence of male circumcision in each country, recognising that self-reported circumcision status, as Thomas et al [21] demonstrate for Lesotho, can be inaccurate. Njeuhmeli et al [22] estimate the number of VMMC procedures needed to reach 80% prevalence using the Decision Makers' Program Planning Tool [23] for male circumcision, an interactive tool that incorporates country-specific demographics, epidemic dynamics, and locally derived cost estimates.…”

Association of HIV prevalence and concurrency of sexual partnerships in South Africa’s language groups: An ecological analysis

“…[11] In particular, self-described circumcision has been shown to over-estimate circumcision prevalence. [21] There is, however, no evidence to indicate that these biases vary between different language groups and, as such, they should not affect the validity of this study. Furthermore, ecological studies are susceptible to the ecological inference fallacy.…”