Nkhata Bay misses male circumcision target
Nkhata Bay district health office (DHO) has failed to meet the voluntary medical male circumcision(VMMC) district target of 850 clients by circumcising only 327 clients during last month’s national campaign.
Nkhata Bay DHO VMMC coordinator, Khumbo Nyasulu said this during a meeting for the district heads of department (district executive committee) in the lakeshore district.
He said one of the reasons for the low turn up was that some religious and traditional leaders in the areas of chiefs Mkumbira, Malanda and Fukamapiri, where the exercise was conducted, confused the exercise with faith-based circumcision.
Nyasulu said the campaign results have shown that most adults are still not free to come forward for the service as only 62 men aged 25 years and above got circumcised. The other 265 clients were aged between 10 and 24 years.
He said: “We are going to have interface meetings with church leaders, community leaders, youth clubs, schools and other influential leaders to take a leading role in sensitising people and dispelling rumours against voluntary medical male circumcision.”
The voluntary medical male circumcision exercise was funded by World Bank through National Aids Commission (NAC) and 48 750 men are expected to be circumcised by 2020 in Nkhata Bay.
