New study touts circumcision, fidelity in Africa's AIDS fight.

Byline: Laurie Goering

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa _ The most promising way to stem Africa's worst AIDS epidemics appears to be encouraging male circumcision and faithfulness to a single partner at a time, not promoting condom use or abstinence, a new look at AIDS studies across the continent suggests.

Condoms are rarely used by regular sex partners, who are involved in much of the spread of the disease in southern Africa, the region of the continent worst hit by AIDS, studies show. And abstinence campaigns appear to simply delay the infection of young people by a year or two, Daniel Halperin, a leading U.S. AIDS prevention expert, said in a provocative speech last week in Johannesburg.

But…