South Africa EpiC Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision Service Delivery (USAID)

The Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC) Service Delivery Project was a one year project (Oct. 2019 to Sept. 2020) funded under Meeting Targets and Maintaining Epidemic Control (EpiC), a global project funded by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The VMMC Service Delivery Project contributed towards HIV epidemic control in South Africa by providing medical circumcision services for 101,673 men in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces.

To support HIV epidemic control in South Africa, the National Department of Health (NDOH) set a target of two million VMMC procedures by 2021. The Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision Service Delivery Project supported this ambitious target and aimed to achieve the following objectives:

• Increase demand for high quality VMMC services in South Africa among males ages 15-34 for specific sites in rural and urban areas identified in collaboration with USAID and NDOH, through multiple approaches, with an emphasis on strengthening community mobilization and interpersonal communication.
• Provide high quality, high volume, cost-efficient VMMC services through fixed, outreach, and mobile VMMC sites in rural and urban districts to reach 80% coverage of the priority population to prevent new HIV infections.
• Liaise with USAID’s Global Health Supply Chain implementing partner to coordinate the forecasting, distribution, and storage of VMMC surgical kits and commodities, as well as waste management.
• Support the transition of direct VMMC service delivery to the Government of South Africa NDOH facilities according to guidance provided by PEPFAR in South Africa.

JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc. provided VMMC services in new and existing sites in the USAID-supported districts of Gauteng province (City of Johannesburg and Sedibeng) and KwaZulu-Natal (eThekwini and Zululand) provinces. This project was implemented in collaboration with FHI360, the prime for EpiC.