President Yoweri Museveni.

KAMPALA, (Reuters):

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has condemned a new study showing that male circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection during sex, saying it sent out a dangerous message.

The state-owned New Vision paper yesterday quoted Museveni as saying there were many confusing messages about HIV/AIDS.

"One of them is that if you are circumcised, you are less likely to catch AIDS even if you behave recklessly. Now what sort of message is that?" the paper quoted him as telling medical students in Kampala.

Study findings

A study conducted in western Kenya and eastern Uganda, where circumcision is a common practice, this month by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) found it reduced the risk of infection by 48-53 per cent.

Museveni rejected the study's conclusion, saying Uganda's apparent success at controlling the virus - official figures say prevalence fell from 30 per cent to six per cent in the early 1990s - was by telling youths to abstain from sex.

HIV prevention strategy

The study had said circumcision is to be seen as "only part of a broader HIV prevention strategy that includes limiting ... sexual partners and using condoms".

Campaigners say Uganda's HIV/AIDS strategy has been hijacked by right-wing Christian groups, mostly from the United States, who promote abstaining from sex at the expense of condoms.

The Uganda AIDS Commission, a government body, this month said 132,000 new infections occurred in Uganda in 2005, but prevalence remained stable at between six-seven per cent. It linked failure to reduce prevalence to less condom use.

Many health workers think the official figures are too low.