Kenyan vasectomies broadcast live on Facebook

Vasectomy operations on men in Kenya have been live streamed from a theatre in the capital as part a campaign to promote the sterilisation procedure.

At least 150 men booked in for the 20-minute procedure which involves severing the tubes that carry sperm.

Doctors performed the vasectomies on stage behind a curtain at the Kenyan National Theatre in Nairobi.

Kenyan men considering a vasectomy often fear the stigma of being seen as having lost their masculinity.

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The World Vasectomy Day organisation was behind the event, which was broadcast on Facebook and included a panel of experts discussing “the myths and misconceptions about vasectomy”.

Campaigners reiterated that it was a safe form of family planning and why it was important in terms of “the country and the planet”.

“Many men have this perception that vasectomy causes a man to turn into a woman,” Dr Jack Zhang, a Canadian doctor at the event, told the BBC.

“Some men fear that in Africa there’s a high mortality rate so they need to have more children.”

The BBC’s Abdinoor Aden in Nairobi says some of the men who came to have a vasectomy were driven by economic concerns about having a large family.

Others said it was to help their partners.

“The family planning methods my wife was using have had bad effects on her so I opted to go and do vasectomy so that she can be relieved,” one man told the BBC.

What is a vasectomy?

• It involves surgically cutting or blocking the tubes that transport sperm from the testicles to the penis
• Afterwards there will be no noticeable difference in the volume of semen, but it will not contain sperm
• It can be reversed, but there is no guarantee it will succeed
• About 50 million men who have received a vasectomy worldwide.

Source: World Vasectomy Day