Area has region’s lowest STI rate

HALTON has the lowest average rate of sexual transmitted infections (STI) in the Liverpool City Region.

The latest data from Public Health England reveals that the borough boasted the lowest rate out of the six areas with the 765 diagnoses in 2016 equating to one for every 165 residents.

By contrast, Liverpool saw a total of 5,462 new cases of STIs discovered by doctors in the city in 2016 – one the highest levels seen on record.

It works out as one new STI for every 88 people living in the city – nearly twice as high as the national average.

Across England, there were 410,715 new STIs diagnosed last year, or one for every 133 people living throughout the country.

In fact, everywhere in the rest of Merseyside saw higher than average rates of STIs, although not quite so high as Liverpool.

In Wirral – the area with the next-highest rate in the region – there were 2,526 STIs diagnosed last year, or one for every 127 people living in the area.

In comparison, St Helens had one of the lowest rate of new STIs seen in the region, with 1,146 cases diagnosed by doctors in 2016 – one for every 155 people living there.

Nationally, the number of STIs being diagnosed has been declining steadily over the last few years, and they are now at their lowest level on record.

Chlamydia is by far the widest-spread STI in England, with nearly 200,000 new cases diagnosed across the country in 2016.

Meanwhile, there were around 61,700 cases of genital warts, 35,500 cases of gonorrhoea, 31,300 cases of herpes and 5,800 cases of syphilis diagnosed over the course of the year.