PrePex, a bloodless circumcision device for adults, will be tested in at least nine African countries in the next year, according to the backers of the tests.
The device, above, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in January, and World Health Organization approval is expected soon. No surgeon is needed for the procedure; a two-nurse team slides a grooved ring inside the foreskin and guides a rubber band to compress the foreskin in the groove. After a week, the dead foreskin falls off like the stump of a baby’s umbilical cord or can be painlessly clipped off, said Tzameret Fuerst, chief executive of PrePex.
The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief will pay for PrePex circumcisions for about 2,500 men in Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda, said Dr. Jason B. Reed, a technical adviser to the plan.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will pay for similar studies in Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It will also test the Shang Ring, a rival device that requires some surgery and the injection of anesthetics into the groin.
A larger study has already established that PrePex is safer than conventional surgery. The new studies, Dr. Reed said, will be done to see whether men in each country will accept it and whether there are any regulatory hurdles.
Public health authorities hope to circumcise 20 million adult men in Africa by 2015 to slow the continent’s AIDS epidemic, which is spread chiefly through heterosexual sex.
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