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With the Government devoting its will and showing commendable commitment, the additional support from non-governmental organisations saw the country’s HIV statistics declining.

For instance, according to the 2010 UNDP Millennium Development Goals status report for Zimbabwe, it is estimated that HIV prevalence among 15-24 year olds declined from 26, 5 percent in 2001 to 15, 6 percent in 2007, the first such decline in Southern Africa.

As the nation pursues this golden ambition, more efforts have been introduced including the much highly publicised “Be Smart, Get Circumcised,” (Pinda MuSmart) Campaign.

Indeed ambitious Zimbabweans, the majority of them the youth, eager to live and let live, took the responsibility and were circumcised in their numbers.

However, the nation was left shell-shocked some days ago as media reports revealed that according to the latest Zimbabwe Health Demographic Survey 2010-2011, the HIV prevalence rate among circumcised males between the ages of 15 and 49 in Zimbabwe is higher than that of uncircumcised males. The prevalence rate among the circumcised is 14 percent while that of the uncircumcised is 12 percent.

Most people could not believe it, it was the talk of the day. It will be the story of the times, and perhaps the nation’s concern from now till the confusion has been cleared.

To further stir the doubt and uncertainty, the Sunday Mail even argued, “For some with a more discerning eye, the recent aggressive male circumcision campaign is an attempt to create a semblance of credibility for a programme which was initially suffering from mass apathy amid concerns over its safety and assumed effectiveness in fighting HIV and Aids.”

Lest we forget, this is a report that is coming at a time when 70 000 Zimbabwean men have gone through the process since the beginning of this year and more expected to. But my concern today is not about the figures; it is about the unstoppable blame game that we as a nation have so much embraced to the extent that we cannot evaluate, analyse and admit our own mistakes.

Media reports are saying we “we were fooled”, meaning we were some kind of a cheap lab in which some form of “Tuskegee syphilis experiment” was recycled and surprisingly we as Zimbabweans, educated as we are, allowed experiments to be done on us while we smiled under a misguided belief that circumcision, the invisible condom, is the answer.

Whether these allegations and assumptions are true or not, as Zimbabweans we share the blame. Otherwise we might have spoiled the solution that was in the end going to save our young generation that is already at risk of contracting HIV.

And the quest to justify circumcision as a major weapon in the fight against HIV is not far to seek; Muslim men are culturally expected to be circumcised, and the HIV prevalence rate in the northern region of Africa is far much lower than that of Southern Africa

In 2010 there were an estimated 22,9 million people living with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa. This has increased since 2009, when an estimated 22,5 million people were living with HIV, including 2,3 million children. There were 1,2 million deaths due to Aids-related illnesses in 2010 compared to 1,3 million in 2009.

But why do I say as a nation we do share the blame? First we have to admit that our implementing partners made a huge mistake. Emphasis was put on the notion that “the top defender” can reduce the risk of infection by up to 60 percent without buttressing on the actuality of the other side to the whole miracle.

If we are to analyse, perhaps do a survey to find out when the circumcised men contracted the virus we are likely to find that it was actually after going through the process.

There was this distorted mentality among the circumcised men that once the foreskin is removed, the individual is from the day immune to the disease. In fact, they thought they were now immune from the infection, yet in reality that was not even close to the reality of the whole mater.

Society can tell of examples of men who went on a sexual enjoyment spree, sleeping around as if the drug to the virus itself was already freely available at every street corner. And the people to blame for this are the partners that implemented the programme. Circumcision might of course reduce the risk of transmission by such a huge percentage but what are the males who would have undergone the process going to do afterwards?

The plain fact is that while the process can reduce one’s susceptibility to HIV, there is still a 40 percent chance that one can get infected. Was this emphasised when Zimbabweans were bombarded with numerous billboards and all forms of advertising? This was misleading and perhaps this explains why the shocking irony that those who are supposed to be less at risk now constitute a greater percentage of those who are HIV positive.

The message was not clear. The truth was hidden, all that the partners who were implementing the programme emphasised were the positives. And the whole idea was glorified to the extent that all young Zimbabweans were pressurised to become circumcised without any clear understanding of why they are doing so. The presumed benefits were largely exaggerated and this was an excellent recipe for the disaster that we are currently experiencing.

If this is the case, then the whole idea would actually mean the more we have men getting circumcised, the greater the prevalence rate! This entails reversing the positive trend that Zimbabwe was witnessing in terms of reducing the prevalence rate of HIV.

The other aspect that has not so much been made open to the public is the real reason why men in Zimbabwe were so much eager to get circumcised outside the mainstream objective, which is to reduce the chances of infection.

With it, there goes another theory that says by getting circumcised, one is instantly awarded the gift of uncompromised sexual endurance! In reality, some women in society are actually witnessing the complete opposite to this mystery. If only we could do a survey on what is happening in people’s bedrooms!

Let us look at it in this way: you tell a school-going boy that circumcision makes one a “champion”, a “tiger” or a “bull” in bed. The next obvious thing he will do will be nothing but to experiment with whichever lady who conveniently offers herself to him. And these women could also be HIV positive. In such cases, most would go for it without any form of protection under the belief that the “hidden condom” would do wonders.

However, circumcision does not actually prevent HIV infection. It just reduces the chances.

So from the start, the majority of the men who went through the process, were not going for it for the sake of reducing the chances of infection, it was rather to see how the miracle works. The best way in this case to test the hypothesis will be to sleep with a woman! And basically, this is what the majority of the men did, a factor that pushed for the disturbing statistics that the Zimbabwe Health Demographic Survey 2010-2011 show.

A lot could have been done in terms of educating the nation; facts should have been clearly laid out so that those who chose to have their foreskin removed would make informed decisions. The media certainly did not do its best. It misinformed at the expense of educating. Our implementing partners should revisit their strategy before it is too late.

We as a nation, need to stop the blame game and admit that we failed to do it right. Perhaps circumcision does reduce the risk of infection, but the way the message was put across into the minds of ordinary Zimbabweans was something else that is far beyond the expectations of the programme’s advocates.

 

* Jephiter Tsamwi writes in his personal capacity and can be contacted at 0733854681/0777930995 or [email protected]