According to the recent statistical and prevalence data circumcision has a significant preventive effect against HIV, at least in Africa. The following is what WHO site says:

“There is compelling evidence that male circumcision reduces the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men by approximately 60%. Three randomized controlled trials have shown that male circumcision provided by well trained health professionals in properly equipped settings is safe. WHO/UNAIDS recommendations emphasize that male circumcision should be considered an efficacious intervention for HIV prevention in countries and regions with heterosexual epidemics, high HIV and low male circumcision prevalence. Male circumcision provides only partial protection, and therefore should be only one element of a comprehensive HIV prevention package which includes.” For further details go to:

http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/malecircumcision/en/index.html

UNAids said 22 countries in the world’s worst affected region had seen a drop in new cases of more than 25%.

The fall was because of greater awareness and better use of preventative measures, it said.

But UNAids also noted that cases of HIV were increasing in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and among gay men in developed countries.

Michel Sidibe, UNAids executive director, said the world was making “real progress” towards achieving the sixth Millennium Development Goal (MDG6) of halting and reversing the spread of HIV/Aids by 2015.

“For the first time change is happening at the heart of the epidemic. In places where HIV was stealing away dreams, we now have hope,” he said.

UNAids says there are now 5.2 million people worldwide receiving treatment for HIV/Aids, which has helped to ensure that 200,000 fewer people died from the virus in 2008 than in 2004.

The agency said young people “are leading the prevention revolution by choosing to have sex later, having fewer multiple partners and using condoms, resulting in significantly fewer new HIV infections in many countries highly affected by Aids”.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11347172

“It’s numb, man, I can’t feel a thing,” he says.

“It reduces the risk of transmitting HIV, so whatever’s needed for me to be safe, I’ve got to do it. But I intend to remain faithful to my wife.”

Lovemore is one of about 3,000 men who have been circumcised since Zimbabwe’s government launched a programme in mid-2009.

In the next eight years the government aims to carry out the operation on 80% of all young men in the country – three million people in all.

Circumcision is not widely practised among Zimbabwe’s cultural and religious groups, but the centuries-old procedure is now regarded as a key weapon in the country’s fight against the spread of HIV and Aids .

The operation is done under local anaesthetic.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8483116.stm

In 2009, approximately 1.8 million people died from AIDS-related illnesses, compared with the roughly 2.1 million in 2004, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) said in a news release.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/23/un.aids.report/index.html?hpt=T2

Washington (CNN) — Republican Rep. Christopher Lee of New York resigned his House seat Wednesday after a report that the married congressman had tried to meet a woman on Craigslist.

“It has been a tremendous honor to serve the people of Western New York,” Lee said in a statement posted on his website. “I regret the harm that my actions have caused my family, my staff and my constituents. I deeply and sincerely apologize to them all. I have made profound mistakes and I promise to work as hard as I can to seek their forgiveness.”

The statement said that “the challenges we face in Western New York and across the country are too serious for me to allow this distraction to continue, and so I am announcing that I have resigned my seat in Congress effective immediately.”

Just before 6 p.m., an announcement read on the House floor said Lee had resigned as of 5 p.m. Wednesday, and the number of the House members decreased by one from 435 to 434.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/02/09/house.lee.resigns/index.html?iref=allsearch

Rep. Christopher Lee resigned Wednesday evening after it was revealed that he sent a suggestive photograph to a woman he met on the Internet, a swift outcome for a scandal that was over before it even began.

The New York Republican was the subject of a Gawker story Wednesday morning that said he allegedly looked for a female companion on Craigslist despite having a wife and child. The picture in question showed him posing with dress pants and no shirt, and the Gawker story revealed a string of e-mails suggesting he was looking to meet women on the Internet.

His resignation was stunning for how quickly it happened. There was hardly enough time for the story to become a full-blown scandal — the picture was posted after lunch, and Lee had resigned before the nightly news.

“It has been a tremendous honor to serve the people of Western New York,” Lee wrote in a release he sent out hours after the story was posted. “I regret the harm that my actions have caused my family, my staff and my constituents. I deeply and sincerely apologize to them all. I have made profound mistakes, and I promise to work as hard as I can to seek their forgiveness.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/49202.html

The incident happened at the Tasso da Silveira Municipal School.

According to Record TV, a man entered the school in the morning armed with two handguns and began shooting at children and school personnel.

The man was identified as Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, 24, a former student at the school, the state-run Agencia Brasil news agency reported.

As the man fled, he ran into military police who were responding to the scene. There was a confrontation, and he was shot, Agencia Brasil reported. He died from his wounds, it said.

There were reports that he had left a letter behind that mentioned he had HIV, Agencia Brasil said.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/04/07/brazil.school.shooting/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1

Researchers examined 271 throat-tumor samples collected over 20 years ending in 2004 and found that the percentage of oral cancer linked to the human papillomavirus, or HPV, surged to 72 percent from about 16 percent, according to a report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. By 2020, the virus-linked throat tumors — which mostly affected men — will become more common than HPV-caused cervical cancer, the report found.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-03/oral-sex-may-cause-virus-linked-throat-cancer-in-men-study.html