Youngsters shun sexual disease tests

FEWER young people are being tested for sexually transmitted infections despite a sharp rise in cases.

The number of 18 to 24-year olds being tested for chlamydia, the most common sexual infection, has fallen by a quarter in five years.

But the proportion testing positive has increased to almost one in ten, with 128,000 cases a year in England. Cases of syphilis have jumped by 12 per cent, according to the Royal College of Nursing.

Experts said the falling levels of testing were a ‘major risk to public health’.