Abstract:

Background: Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC) is among the important and popular interventions for the prevention of the new HIV infections. The coverage of male circumcision is still low to some of the regions especially Katavi region which is 44.3% for the general population. The situation is worse among men adults this is known due to predominance of young boys during VMMC services. To improve the coverage of male circumcision the World Health Organization (WHO) and other partners recommend VMMC to be incorporated with other available interventions. Factors associated with low VMMC uptake are not clearly known. Therefore this study was conducted to asses prevalence and factors associated with low VMMC uptake among 20 years and older in Mpanda MC.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional community based study, collected quantitative data from men aged 20 years and older. The study was conducted in 5 wards and 15 villages of Mpanda Municipal Council in August 2017. Multistage sampling was used to select villages included in the study and random selection of households to obtain the study participants was made. A total of 570 men were interviewed. Quantitative data were analyzed using logistic regression. Univariate and Multivariate analysis were done, odds ratio was used as measure of association.

Results: Uptake of VMMC among men aged 20 years and older is low only 53.5% had received the service. Majority of respondents were knowledgeable on VMMC with 92.2% (525) reported male circumcision had health benefits and 393 (69%) reported that HIV could be prevented through medical Male Circumcision and the service was accepted by 504 (88.42%). Factors associated with low VMMC includes discourages men to take the services (OR 9.5; 95%CI 3.9 – 22.9; p-value<0.001) and health personnel behavior (OR 5.7; 95% CI 1.3 – 24.0), p-value 0.024).

Conclusion: In general the Uptake of Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision was found to be high as compared to the TACAIDS report of 2013, but not at the national target of 80%. Men aged 20 years and older in Mpanda Municipal were more likely to be circumcised but were discouraged with health the service and personnel behavior. Therefore VMMC program should focus more on the predictors of low uptake of VMMC with more emphasis of Health system related and Health promotion to raise the coverage for better achievement.