PMC

The trial profile is given in . There were 1264 wives currently married or in long-term union with 1167 men enrolled in the intervention arm (1.08 wives per married man), and there were 1239 female spouses of 1173 men enrolled in the control arm of the trial (1.06 wives per married man). The number of linked, enrolled women exceeded the number of enrolled men because of polygamous relationships. At time of female enrollment, 1203 wives of intervention arm men were HIV-negative (95.2%); and in the control arm 1171 were uninfected with HIV (94.5%). Among these HIV-negative married women, 835 (69.4%) were enrolled concurrently with their husbands in the intervention arm (i.e., before the man’s circumcision surgery), and 803 (68.6%) were enrolled concurrently with their control arm husbands. These HIV-uninfected women who were enrolled at the same time as their husbands constitute the primary analysis sample for this study (). A minority of women (368 in the intervention arm and 368 in the control arm) were enrolled six or more months after their husband’s enrollment date. These women were excluded from the primary intent-to-treat analysis because, if circumcision affected female vaginal symptoms or infections, the baseline information for these women could have been biased by the interval of exposure between their male partner’s circumcision and the woman’s initial enrollment visit.