Can the "ShangRing" Make Circumcision More Attractive?

First the folding umbrella, then gunpowder, porcelain and movable type. And now from the annals of Chinese invention comes the latest entrant -- the male circumcision device. Dubbed the "ShangRing," it's a set of plastic rings that grabs the foreskin before an incision is made, and is kept on the body for 10 days to allow the wound to heal. And if it can make circumcision a less painful and time-consuming affair, it might have pretty extraordinary health implications.

Globally, just one in three men is circumcised. Yet as the AP reports, the "most powerful force against AIDS in Africa" might actually be circumcision, as the foreskin is particularly vulnerable to HIV infection. In fact, the UN and World Health Organization say that the procedure can reduce the risk of HIV by 60%.

Across Africa, though, where 70% of the world's population with HIV lives, trying to coax the 50 million men there to undergo circumcision has been -- not surprisingly -- no easy task for health officials. As Dr. Renee Ridzon of the Gates Foundation delicately puts it, "Circumcision is unlike a vaccine....It has certain challenges."

Dollar for dollar, though, circumcision may be one of the more effective interventions out there. Experts estimate that mass circumcision could prevent about 4 million adult HIV infections by 2025. And for patients, a plastic ring set to ease the process, inexpensively mass-produced by the Chinese, could make the procedure seem less forbidding.

That's not to say, of course, that debate over the procedure won't remain something of a minefield. Despite research suggesting that the procedure reduces adult men's chances of getting penile cancer or diseases that include syphilis and herpes -- as well as AIDS -- the tenor of the conversation remains emotionally charged, as you can see in any flood of letters to the editor that accompany stories on the subject. Here in the U.S., the number of infant boys who are circumcised has dropped to about 56%, after a high of around 80% in the 1960s. With the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics evaluating their positions on circumcision, you can expect more serious barbs on the subject to fly.

For now, however that debate unfolds, the real action is happening on the ground, with this kind of innovation. That's why the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is opening its coffers to fund $4 million worth of research into the ShangRing. The device might not look like much -- just a couple inches of tepid pink plastic -- but it holds the promises of future lives.

Photo Credit: Margaridaperola