Alarm over soaring rate of sexual infections
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Young people who ignore the risks of unprotected sex are driving Britain's soaring rate of sexually transmitted infections, experts have warned.
More than 790,000 new diagnoses were made in genito-urinary medicine clinics in 2005, 3 per cent up on 2004 and almost 20 per cent higher than in 2001. Cases of chlamydia, herpes, genital warts and syphilis reached new highs, with syphilis showing the biggest increase.
Professor Peter Borriello, director of the centre for infections at the Health Protection Agency, said there was a tendency to treat sexually transmitted infections as trivial.
"[The attitude is] it's a dose of the clap, go and get an antibiotic, so what's the big deal?" he said. "The big deal is that chlamydia can make you sterile, syphilis can cause brain disease, human papilloma virus [genital warts] can cause [cervical] cancer and any infection can cause congenital malformations... We need to shatter the complacency."
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments