Education of Religious Leaders Increased Male Circumcision Uptake for HIV Prevention in Tanzania

Voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) is a cost-effective HIV prevention intervention providing lifelong partial protection against female-to-male HIV transmission. Despite dramatic scale-up of VMMC in 14 priority countries in eastern and southern Africa that have high levels of HIV prevalence and had low levels of male circumcision, the annual numbers of circumcisions must more than double over the next 3 years to reach the UNAIDS 2020 target of 25 million young men in high-prevalence settings being circumcised.

Researchers conducted this community-based, cluster-randomized trial in 16 villages in Tanzania to test whether equipping religious leaders with knowledge and tools about VMMC would increase circumcision uptake. All villages we…