Karonga DHO courts more players for male medical circumcision

Karonga District Health Office (DHO) has asked Ministry of Health (MoH) to deploy more trained voluntary male medical circumcision (VMMC) service providers in the district.

District VMMC coordinator for Karonga, Atupele Simfukwe, made the appeal to officials from the ministry during the reviewing of VMMC project on Monday.

He said the district has only 12 trained providers, a development which is slowing the implementation of the project.

According to Simfukwe, since July last year, the district has managed to reach only 2 500 clients.

MoH is conducting the VMMC World Bank project in 20 district hospitals and 30 rural hospitals, including Karonga, with K23 million financial support.

VMMC national coordinator Simeon Lijenje said the project, which started last year, is expected to phase out in 2017.

He said the target is to reach out to over 18 000 people in Karonga District, which has a high HIV prevalence rate of 10.6.