In a new Huffington Post article, Jennifer James, founder of Mom Bloggers for Social Good, highlights her visit to an IntraHealth-run rural outreach facility in Shinyanga, Tanzania. Health workers there offer HIV testing, counseling, and voluntary medical male circumcision services to a population that suffers high rates of HIV and low access to health services. 

Excerpt:

Armed with CDC funding, IntraHealth works to effectively reduce the 7.4-percent HIV-prevalence rate in the three regions in which they work on VMMC. The HIV rate in these areas is higher than the nationwide average, making the scale-up and outreach of VMMC critical.

The Tanzanian government takes part in the human-resource side of regional VMMC projects and also pays health workers, explained Dr. Gissenge Liga, the head of the Clinical STI Unit and a national VMMC focal person. Yet there are still challenges that health workers who work on VMMC face. 

Dr. Ntuli Kapologwe, a regional medical officer in Shinyanga, says the main challenges are supply-chain management, governance, continuing education, and low pay for health workers. "On the regional level people are competent," Kapologwe said. "We are doing our best."

Read Looking at Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision in the Field in the Huffington Post.