A joint interest in limiting the spread of HIV in Africa has triggered a pioneering partnership between Jews and Muslims to share their expertise of circumcision.

Five specialists from Senegal, which is predominantly Muslim, this week attended a seminar in Jerusalem organised by Operation Abraham, a group of Israeli-based Jewish experts, signalling the start of joint programmes to train doctors across sub-Saharan Africa in adult circumcision.

The action adds African Muslims to Operation Abraham’s own efforts over the past two years to train doctors in Swaziland, with other formal agreements already signed with Lesotho and Uganda, and interest from half a dozen other countries.

It comes amid growing evidence that circumcision sharply reduces the transmission of HIV, the virus that causes Aids, while also being culturally acceptable in many African countries at high risk from the infection.

It signals a fresh engagement between the two religions at a time when international public health specialists have tried to accelerate cooperation between different faiths in efforts to better tackle life-threatening diseases including HIV and malaria.

In his previous trip to Cairo and his current visit to Africa, US President Barack Obama has been urged to tap the influence of faith-based organisations to fight malaria. Proponents argue they could offer a fresh way to reinvigorate both American efforts to engage Muslims and tackle a disease where there are few disagreements between the faiths.

Religious and moral sensitivities have in the past limited united efforts to use religious organisations tackle HIV through programmes such as the distribution of condoms or discussion around safer sexual practices. But the shared practice of circumcision offers common ground for Islam and Judaism.

Inon Schenker, one of the organisers, said: “Abraham brought [Jews and Muslims] together with circumcision 3,000 years ago. Now we have opened an avenue for US funding after President Obama’s calls in Cairo to bring Islam together with America.”

Israel has probably the world’s most extensive experience of 100,000 adult male circumcisions since the arrival of previously uncircumcised Jews from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia in the 1980s.

A delegation of five surgeons and public health specialists from Senegal concluded a four-day workshop on Friday following a formal agreement between Senegal’s ministry of health and its medical association with the Jerusalem Aids Project, a backer of Operation Abraham.

The meeting was the culmination of many months of discreet work to build interfaith links between Jewish and Muslim medical specialists keen to apply their skills collectively while seeking to avoid inflaming any political and religious sensitivities.

An Israeli-based Muslim surgeon last year accompanied Jewish specialists on Operation Abraham’s third trip lto Swaziland, which has one of the highest rates of HIV in the world.