Health fears as STIS are diagnosed in young people every four minutes

SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED infections are diagnosed every four minutes among young people in the UK, Public Health England has revealed.

Figures from PHE found that in 2017 there were around 200,000 diagnoses of chlamydia and 44,000 of gonorrhoea, with 58 per cent of those cases in the 15 to 24 age bracket.

The number of diagnoses in young people remained static in 2015, 2016 and 2017, with around 200,000 cases.

The number of cases of gonorrhoea in all age groups rose 22 per cent between 2016 and 2017. A survey of young people to accompany a PHE campaign, “Protect Against STIS”, which highlights the importance of using a condom, found that more than half had had sex with a new partner for the first time without such protection.

The campaign highlights the longterm health issues associated with an STI, such as infertility, and urges young people to get regular screening.

Joe Petersen-camp, a sexual health specialist at Homerton Hospital, east London, said: “The worst STI is the one you don’t know about. It’s slowly causing you harm but there’s nothing you can do about it.”

He added that while it was hard to say whether rates of condom use had fallen among young people, the increase in certain STIS suggested this was the case.

A decrease in condom use could be down to the fact that young people are growing up at time when HIV/AIDS is no longer a death sentence and that sex education in schools has focused on reducing the rate of teenage pregnancy and has not highlighted sexual health.