Health Protection Agency reveals Wandsworth is one of country's STI hotspots (From Your Local Guardian)

Health Protection Agency reveals Wandsworth is one of country's STI hotspots

7:30am Friday 3rd September 2010 in

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Health bosses have played down new research which exposed Wandsworth as one of the country’s sexually transmitted infection (STI) hotspots.

Figures released by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) revealed the borough as having the seventh highest acute STI rate in England - with 1,692.9 people for every 100,000 of the population having a new infection. Hackney topped the table with a figure of 2335.2.

Simon Blake, the director of Brook, which runs a confidential sexual advice centre in Battersea’s Stormont Road Health Centre, said the figures were a fresh reminder that “too many young people are taking chances with their sexual health”.

He said: “Young people tell us their sex and relationships education (SRE) is too little, too late and too biological and it needs to address emotions and relationships more effectively.

“We are urging the Government to make SRE statutory in all schools, and to ensure that young people's sexual health is a core part of the forthcoming National Public Health Service.”

Gwenda Hughes, head of the HPA's STI section, said the findings highlighted poor sexual health as “a serious problem”, and showed young adults were more likely to have unsafe sex because they “often they lack the skills and confidence to negotiate safer sex”.

She said: “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.”

However, NHS Wandsworth claimed the findings were not an accurate reflection on the scale of the problem in the borough.

A spokeswoman said having a population with more than 70 per cent below the age of 44 meant there were “inevitability higher rates of risky behaviour around sexual relations”.

She said: “The figures released by the HPA are solely based on results received from sexual health clinics and community based chlamydia testing. Wandsworth’s STI figures may appear to be higher as we currently offer GUM (Genitourinary Medicine) services and testing in two separate sites in the borough, whereas other boroughs typically only have one.

“The rise in STIs can also be explained by the massive increase in young people coming forward to be tested. During 2009/10, we screened 8,467 of under 24-year-olds for Chlamyidia, an increase of more than 8 per cent on last year’s rate.”

The HPA data did not include new HIV/AIDS diagnoses, which NHS Wandsworth was unable to provide.

The STI rates per 100,000 population in 2009 were:

Chlamydia (15 to 24-year-olds) - 3204.5
Chlamydia (25-plus) - 268.8
Gonorrhoea - 93.3
Syphilis - 21.1
Herpes - 135.6
Warts - 290.5
Acute STIs (new infections) - 1692.9

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