Rwanda testing non-surgical circumcision device in national campaign

BBC News on Sunday looked at Rwanda's national circumcision campaign, which began in December 2010 to help lower the incidence of HIV in the country. "Since the campaign began, Rwanda has circumcised 5,000 men but it can dramatically increase these figures. The health ministry estimates that with 500 health facilities in the country Rwanda can perform approximately 250,000 procedures every two weeks," according to the news service.

The program is testing a new "device called a PrePex, a three-piece mechanism consisting of two plastic rings and an elastic mechanism," that "is clamped onto the penis without any need for sutures or anesthesia" to remove the foreskin, BBC News writes (Stein, 7/24).