Summary

Program goals

The World Health Organization and UNAIDS have proved that circumcised men reduce their risk of HIV Infection by approximately 60% in high risk areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa. However, surgical male circumcision (SMC) requires highly trained medical professionals and sterile surgery-type settings. While genuine attempts have been made by target countries to scale up SMC in the past years, the procedure is not geared for the volume required in Africa, especially in rural and resource limited areas. The Circ MedTech team developed the PrePex device to solve this problem - to achieve rapid scale-up of male circumcision (MC) in resource limited settings, prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Key program components

PrePex is the first known device to facilitate non-surgical medical adult MC that can claim all of the following: No injected anesthesia. No blood. No sutures. No sterile settings. Public Healthcare Benefits include: **Safe:** Device approved for use in Rwanda in March 2011, following year-long studies validating safety and efficacy. **Simple:** Easy to train, to place and remove by minimally skilled medical workers, facilitating task shifting and freeing up mission-critical infrastructure and resources for life saving procedures. **Scalable:** Average of 3 minutes procedure time including device placement and removal, disposable device, requires no sterile facilities or settings. **Cost Effective:** Affordable for public health and designed to maximize aid funds, compared with the surgical technique. Easy to ship, store and distribute with only 5 adult sizes. **Acceptability:** High patient satisfaction rate of end cosmetic result; many more volunteers than needed throughout studies.