Steve C. Kumvenji

Steve C. Kumvenji is member of the 2018 Guideline Development Group (GDG) of the WHO. The GDG's task is to develop updated recommendations on safe male circumcision for HIV prevention and related service delivery for adolescent boys and men in generalized HIV epidemics.

Contents

Biography

The WHO published the following biography of Steve C. Kumvenji:

Kumvenji, Steve C

• African Youth and Adolescent Network on Population and Development -AfriYAN]
• Bachelors of Social Studies Educations (Family Science Nutrition), Diploma In Medicine
• Malawi, Zomba City

Steve Kumvenji is an exceptionally enthusiastic and highly motivated young person strongly interested and actively involved in the public health field. He is currently involved as a Clinical Officer with the Ministry of Health, particularly responsible at providing primary health care in the consultation, diagnosis and comprehensive care treatment of patients and also a Service Provider of VMMC with over three years of Clinical Practice, fully registered with the Medical Council of Malawi. Recently, he has been very actively involved in high intensity mass VMMC campaigns as a VMMC provider in Malawi even in the areas where the traditional circumcision is highly practiced. The nature of the campaign has exposed him to a lot of outstanding experiences in VMMC in all the activities that he has been part of ranging from community mobilization on VMMC demand creation to screening for STI’s and provision of HIV testing and counseling, group education on VMMC and linkage services to appropriate health care to the clients among others as best practices in the voluntary male medical circumcision.

Steve Kumvenji is a very active member of African Youth and Adolescents Network on Population and Development (AfriYAN). This is a consultative, coordinating and actions framework network for the youth and adolescent’s organization, a tool for collaboration on; HIV/AIDS, SRHR, population and youth development including all issues of public health and sustainable development. With AfriYAN, I have also been very instrumental in facilitating to the establishment of a National Youth Network in Malawi where among other activities involved the mobilization of young people, leaders and other stakeholders to the initial formulation. He served in the ESA Commitment CSO Coordinating Platform (PCC) which is a Pan African civil society movement that seeks to promote the successful implementation of the ESA Commitment on supporting sexuality education and sexual and reproductive health services for adolescents and young people. He has also served as President of the University of Malawi Students Union (UMSU) with over 18,000 members across the country.

Kumvenji is an active and on-going provider of VMMC for more than three years. He is highly involved with VMMC and apparently is a strong believer in VMMC to prevent HIV. One would believe that his mind is made up in favor of male circumcision.

Population-based studies

September 2021 saw the publication of two huge population studies on the relationship of circumcision and HIV infection:

1. Mayan et al. (2021) carried out a massive empirical study of the male population of the province of Ontario, Canada (569,950 males), of whom 203,588 (35.7%) were circumcised between 1991 and 2017. The study concluded that circumcision status is not related to risk of HIV infection.
2. Morten Frisch & Jacob Simonsen (2021) carried out a large scale empirical population study in Denmark of 855,654 males regarding the alleged value of male circumcision in preventing HIV and other sexually transmitted infections in men. They found that circumcised men have a higher rate of STI and HIV infection overall than intact men.

No association between lack of circumcision and risk of HIV infection was found by either study.

See also

• Bias