This page complements the Male Circumcision Clearinghouse (www.malecircumcision.org), which is an ongoing collaborative project of WHO, UNAIDS, AVAC, FHI 360 and many other stakeholders.

Priorities for the Year

AVAC's Playbook 2012 sets out top strategic goals and priorities in HIV prevention for ourselves—and for the world. Here's what we have to say about voluntary medical male circumcision. For more, visit www.avac.org/playbook.

Five Key Actions at the Five-Year Anniversary of VMMC for HIV Prevention

1. Support civil society coalitions in sub-Saharan African countries prioritized for VMMC rollout so that these coalitions can debunk opposition and make a clear case that national governments must embrace VMMC as part of combination prevention.

2. Monitor, influence and react to activities in relevant priority countries to ensure that there is no delay in the creation of costed, milestone-driven plans for VMMC rollout, with the goal of maximizing impact on new infections.

3. Track allocation of resources by donors and national governments. This includes monitoring: how PEPFAR fulfills its commitment to an additional 4.7 million VMMCs over the next two years; reallocation of existing Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria grants and/or new requests for resources for VMMC; and allocation of national government resources.

4. Track the progress in increasing efficiency and decreasing cost of VMMC programs. This includes operations research on task-shifting and other efficiencies in traditional surgery. Also key: swift evaluation at international and country level of potential new devices for non-surgical VMMC, ensuring fair pricing and commitment from governments and donors to exploring possible implementation.

5. Maintaining accessible resources including graphics and country activity updates so that all stakeholders can track progress towards the global goal of 20 million VMMCs performed by 2015.

Tracking Progress towards the Global Goal

A regularly-updated map showing progress to VMMC targets in 14 countries—and overall progress to the goal of 20 million VMMCs performed by 2015

VMMC - Advocacy in Country

Advocacy in country: updates on civil society coalitions working to ensure VMMC is implemented as a cornerstone of combination prevention in priority countries

The Latest Resources & Updates

• Renew commitment to male circumcision
  Uganda's Minister of Health, along with AVAC and a number of other co-authors, wrote this piece appearing in Uganda's most read newspaper, The New Vision.

• A Call to Action on Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision: Implementing a key component of combination HIV prevention
  This report analyses the current state of VMMC rollout and seeks to unite diverse stakeholders at country, regional and global levels in an unprecedented joint undertaking to capitalize on the unique promise of VMMC. (Summary document also available.)

• Too Little, Too Slow
  Results from civil society monitoring of male circumcision for HIV prevention in Uganda

• An Advocates’ Update on WHO’s review of devices for adult male circumcision in public health HIV prevention program
  There is progress towards the introduction of non-surgical devices for VMMC. WHO recently issued a limited technical note which paves the way for Rwanda to introduce one such device. Click here for the WHO document

• Making the Case for the Cut
  A “Fact and Fiction” sheet and “African Scientists Respond” are two of the documents AVAC has developed to help clarify and debunk skeptics’ claims about VMMC for HIV prevention. These complement a recently published rebuttal article by leading scientists.

Podcasts

• Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision—The power of prevention: The first in a series of four feature-length podcast narrative featuring global and grassroots perspectives on VMMC advocacy past, present and future
• Eight full-length interviews with VMMC champions
• Getting that All-Important Cut—Why today?: A personal essay from AVAC team member Angelo Kaggwa

• Introductory Information: For the basics of medical male circumcision, visit the About Male Circumcision section. A male circumcision fact sheet (PDF) is available for download in English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Thai.

• In-Depth Information: For much more on medical male circumcision and issues surrounding medical male circumcision research, visit the Male Circumcision Resources for a wide range of materials.

• Recent Results: For these details, visit the Male Circumcision Clinical Trials page.

In addition to the resources here, a wide range of materials and updates on global activities can be found at the Clearinghouse on Male Circumcision on HIV Prevention, a collaborative effort of AVAC, WHO/UNAIDS and FHI to generate and share informational resources with the international public health community, civil society groups, health policy makers and program managers.