Southern Africa, the epicentre of the AIDS epidemic, agreed to look at male circumcision to fight the pandemic in the wake of reports that it could halve the risk of males contracting HIV.

A 14-nation regional bloc ended a three-day meeting on HIV/AIDS by stating that "member states will hold further national consultations to examine the results and will work with the World Health Organisation and UNAIDS to determine the implications of these studies."

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) said it had noted evidence from Uganda and Kenya and another study conducted in a South African township "confirming that male circumcision has a 50-60 percent preventative effect."

"There is general interest in most countries to consider this and we will come up with a clear action plan on how to act on male circumcision," Keketso Sefeane, chief of Lesotho's national AIDS commission, told AFP.

"We want male circumcision to be done safely... We want to use it as a vehicle to communicate HIV and AIDS issues," said Sefeane.

A report by UNAIDS published this year shows that 63 percent of all adults and children with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa.

According to the report, adults and children newly infected with the virus rose to 2.8 million in 2006 from 2.4 million in 2004.

The SADC said it would develop an HIV prevention strategy which will be released early next year "to ensure a sustained focus on HIV prevention."

Zambian surgeon and university lecturer Kasendo Bowa had earlier urged the region to embrace male circumcision, saying there was "substantially overwhelming" evidence that it reduced the transmission of HIV.

"SADC must make a decision and generate leadership on this issue. The HIV pandemic has gone up in the region and the key difference is male circumcision," he said.

"It is a low-cost intervention which costs only 15 dollars (11 euros), unlike AIDS drugs which cost 480 dollars (364 euros) per year per person and it's a continued expense."

He said circumcision "is not an isolated intervention, but part of a package of HIV prevention."

The meeting here in the Malawi commercial capital Blantyre has also been addressing how sex workers and gays can be roped in to help the fight against the disease.

Sex workers and gays were regarded as "important stakeholders" in the fight, said Lesotho's AIDS commission chief Sefeane.

"Unfortunately, there is no data on homosexuals and commercial sex workers in the region although there is high levels of HIV prevalence in Mauritius among these groups which has increased to 100 percent from 2003," he said.

SADC groups Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania , Zambia and Zimbabwe.

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