UK STIs Hitting Half A Million

The number of new cases of sexually transmitted infections in the UK has risen to nearly half a million, according to the latest figures.

The Health Protection Agency said that there were 482,696 new cases of STIs reported last year - an increase of almost 12,000 cases from the previous year.

Young women, aged between 15 and 24, were likely to be the most affected, the HPA revealed, with around two-thirds of new STI diagnoses being in women under 25. Nearly three-quarters of these (73%) were new cases of gonorrhoea, while two thirds (66%) were cases of genital warts. Meanwhile, of all the women diagnosed with chlamydia, 88% were under 25.

In men, over half of new STI diagnoses were in the under-25 age group, accounting for 41% of gonorrhoea cases, 47% of genital warts and 69% of chlamydia.

The HPA also said that high rates of diagnosis had also been found amongst gay men.

The figures also revealed that of all the 15-24-year-olds diagnosed with an STI last year, around one in ten would become re-infected within a year.

Commenting on the figures, Dr Gwenda Huges, Head of the HPA's STI section, said: "These latest figures show that poor sexual health is a serious problem among the UK's young adults and men who have sex with men.

"These figures also highlight the vulnerability of young women. Many studies have shown that young adults are more likely to have unsafe sex and often they lack the skills and confidence to negotiate safer sex.

"Re-infection is also a worrying issue - the numbers we're seeing in teenagers are of particular concern as this suggests teenagers are repeatedly putting their own, as well as others, long term health at risk from STIs."

Dr Hughes added: "We are doing more testing, such as through the National Chlamydia Screening Programme, and some of the tests we are using for gonorrhoea and herpes are more sensitive, so as a result we are now picking up more infections.

"However, we know that the rise in STIs is also due in part to unsafe sexual behaviour. The safest way to protect yourself against an STI is to use a condom with new partners. Sexually active under 25 year olds should be tested for chlamydia every year or when they change their partner."

The figures also showed that diagnoses of chlamydia, gonorrhoea and genital herpes all increased last year (by 7%, 6% and 5%, respectively).

For the first time, the figures also showed the areas that had the highest rates of STIs. Several London boroughs, most notably Hackney, Brighton and Hove, Nottingham, Manchester, Blackpool, Birmingham, Southampton and Liverpool recorded the highest rates.

The figures also suggested an emergence of potential resistance to drugs used to treat gonorrhoea.

Professor Cathy Ison, a gonorrhoea expert at HPA's Centre for Infections, said: "At the moment, the drugs we use in the UK are still effective for treating gonorrhoea. But our lab tests show that the bacteria are becoming less sensitive to these drugs and the worry is that we could see gonorrhoea become a very difficult infection to treat within the next five years, as elsewhere in the world.

"Potentially, this means that in the case of gonorrhoea, practising safe sex may eventually be the only way of controlling the infection if new antibiotic treatments cannot be found."

(KMcA/GK)