Ayanda Nqeketo

Ayanda Nqeketo 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 Ayanda Nqeketo:

Ayanda Nqeketo: BA Hon., M.A. in Medical Anthropology

• Ikamva Lesizwe Institute’s
• Position: Director Demand Generation

Mr. Ayanda Nqeketo is a Medical Anthropologist who has worked in the area of traditional male circumcision (TMC), voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) and HIV/AIDS. He grew up in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Over the years he established and maintained excellent relations with both national and provincial departments of health and traditional leadership, as well as plays a technical advisory role on both VMMC and traditional male circumcision. Since 2013 Ayanda, has focused on providing technical support to the South Africa Government (SAG) in development of national strategies, plans and updating MMC guidelines. Emphasis has been on defining NDOH optimal combination packages of interventions that target young men. Ayanda continued support to South African Government implementation of the National Department of Health’s VMMC implementation plan and the HIV Prevention Strategy for the Health Sector. He supported the NDOH during its engagements with the provinces regarding development and allocation of provincial budgets, under the HIV and AIDS conditional grant mechanism, to cover the costs associated with contracting private health practitioners to integrate VMMC into traditional male circumcision (TMC). Ayanda offered technical assistance (TA) to establish and maintain dialogue between NDOH and congress of traditional leaders of SA around the utilization and integration of private practitioners to traditional circumcision practices, with the aim of improving the delivery of safe male circumcision.

Ayanda worked in Swaziland as Technical Advisor responsible for the re-introduction and mass scale up of medical male circumcision within the Ministry of Health. He has also developed expertise in organizing the coordination of bilateral and multilateral agencies, non-government organizations, private clinics and other Ministry of Health partners to ensure that the implementation of male circumcision policy and other activities that are in compliance with international guidelines and implemented as agreed upon with Swaziland Government. As such, he has been instrumental in facilitating and enhancing information sharing, policy coordination, and collaboration for the scale-up of male circumcision services in Swaziland.

Between 2010 and 2012, Ayanda wrote several columns for Swazi newspapers on male circumcision. Ayanda brings over ten years of experience in social aspects of HIV, health systems, health policy, and strategies for male involvement in reproductive health issues. Ayanda has been active in training traditional care-givers on application of health standards during traditional male circumcision in South Africa. Ayanda has conducted his work in several languages spoken in Southern Africa. For over 15 years, Ayanda has committed himself to bridging the gap between understandings of health from Western to local traditional perspectives.

Mr. Ayanda Nqeketo is a director of Ikamva Lesizwe Institute. Ikamva Lesizwe Institute is a South African not-for-profit organization that was formed in 2016 to assist government and other concerned agencies in certain regions of the country, to facilitate and improve the implementation of both medical and traditional circumcision initiatives, among other things. Ikamva Lesizwe Institute’s approach to its work revolves around working with local communities and traditional leadership structures, to create an environment of consensus and mutual support. In addition to its founding directors, Ikamva’s intervention in communities relies on a number of stakeholders: medical practitioners, local facilitators or gatekeepers who assist in reaching and educating local people about pending medical intervention within traditional male circumcision. Ikamva teams in different localities work hand in hand with traditional custodians of TMC with respect and sensitivity to local cultures.

Nqeketo, through the Ikamva Lesizwe Institute, appears to be working actively to promote medical circumcision and to make traditional circumcision safer. He appears to have taken a strong position in favor of male circumcision, however one paper reported that "[c]ircumcision had no protective effect in the prevention of HIV transmission."

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. There now is credible evidence that the massive, expensive African circumcision programs have not been effective in preventing HIV infection.

See also

• Bias
• South Africa