He made the call at the opening of a two-day meeting on male circumcision in Windhoek on Tuesday.

Kamwi said circumcision provided partial protection against HIV infection.

Recent international research has revealed that male circumcision could be a potential method for limiting the spread of HIV.

Kamwi said despite significant efforts to fight the HIV pandemic in Namibia, the Ministry was still seeing prevalence rates of 19 per cent among pregnant women.

"Our models estimate that there are approximately 40 new HIV infections a day in our country.

Safe male circumcision for HIV prevention is now being given attention in Namibia and other African countries as a potential tool our prevention package," said Kamwi.

However, the introduction of safe male circumcision services in Namibia needs to take into account local cultural and religious values to ensure accountability by communities and built on existing cultural practices, he said.

"We know that in some communities circumcision is a well-established practice.

Careful assessment and conversation with leaders and communities continues to take place to plan for a scale-up of safe male circumcision services in Namibia," he said.

Kamwi said this required well-trained health workers, equipment and supplies.

But he emphasised that circumcised man could still become infected and those who were HIV positive could infect their partners.

There was no evidence that circumcising men who are HIV positive had any protective effect on their partners, the Minister pointed out.

"HIV-negative men who engage in sexual activity before they have healed [from the circumcision] are also at risk of becoming infected with HIV.

"Therefore, all men who undergo circumcision should be counselled to abstain from sexual activity until they are healed and thereafter use condoms correctly and consistently," Kamwi said.

Male circumcision is one of the oldest and most common surgical procedures worldwide, done for religious, cultural, social or medical reasons.

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