“Kenya’s most recent male circumcision rapid results initiative failed to meet its target, and officials are stepping up efforts to identify and fix the problems that could foil the government’s campaign to circumcise more than one million men by 2013,” PlusNews reports. “Conducted between November and December 2011, the initiative aimed to circumcise 70,000 men over a 30-day period, but results released in February show that only 40,000 men were circumcised,” the news service writes, adding, “This is the first time the annual initiative — which began in 2008 — has failed to reach its target.”

According to the news service, “Officials in the program attributed the shortfall, at least in part, to heavy rains in November and December that rendered many of the roads in Nyanza, western Kenya, impassable for medical teams running mobile circumcision clinics.” PlusNews writes, “Beyond reaching numeric targets, officials are also concerned by signs that some men are resuming sex before the designated six-week healing period, putting themselves and their partners at higher risk of contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted infections” (3/2).