Trust plea after rise in diseases (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Trust plea after rise in diseases

HEALTH officials in Wiltshire say they are not being complacent about sexual health, despite rising rates of sexually transmitted diseases in the county.

West Wiltshire and Kennet & North Wiltshire Primary Care Trusts used World Aids Day yesterday to promote their campaign to stem the rise of STDs, including HIV and chlamydia.

One measure is encouraging GPs and pharmacists to play a greater role in promoting safer sex to help the message reach people living in rural areas. Other tactics include a widespread screening programme for chlamydia and the launch of a strategy to improve sexual health awareness.

Latest figures released by the Health Protection Agency show a rapid rise in the number of people diagnosed with HIV in the UK.

In Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire 104 people were diagnosed with HIV in 2004, with 742 receiving treatment.

PCT officials would not release figures for west or north Wiltshire but said there was an increasing trend of HIV being diagnosed in the three counties. Rising figures have prompted the Terrence Higgins Trust to call on PCTs to commit more funding for frontline sexual health services.

In Wiltshire, PCT health promotion specialist Margaret Winskill said the PCTs were not being complacent and had a raft of measures to counteract the rising STD rates.

She said cases of chlamydia, which can lead to infertility in young women and is estimated to affect one in 10 young people in the UK, were increasing in Wiltshire but plans were in place to fund a laboratory and launch a comprehensive screening programme.

A strategy for promoting, sustaining and improving sexual health will be launched in Wiltshire on Tuesday, with Genito-Urinary Medicine clinics, Gay Men's Health and other groups having an input.

Mrs Winskill said: "There is no such thing as safe sex, it is always safer sex. With chlamydia there are very few or no symptoms at all and it can affect fertility. If you don't know you have got it you can't do anything about it."

Teenage pregnancy co-ordinator Adele Radice said research showed although people were not having more sex, they were tending to have more sexual partners, which could have contributed to the rise in cases.