Sharp rise in sexually transmitted infections in Europe
On World Sexual Health Day, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) calls for urgent measures to stifle the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STI) in the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA) amid rising diagnoses.
In the EDCD’s latest review, member states reported 300,000 new diagnoses of STIs yearly. STIs are typically spread through unprotected sexual contact, but they can also be passed on during pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding due to blood infections.
The review focused on data collected on four of the most common and curable STIs: chlamydia, gonorrhoea, trichomoniasis and syphilis. These specific STIs have seen a large rise in Europe throughout the past year, with gonorrhoea cases rising by 48%, syphilis by 34%, and chlamydia by 16%.
According to the review, higher-risk groups for STIs include young people between the ages of 15 and 24, men who sleep with men (MSM) and sex workers.
The study found that young women have higher estimated chlamydia reports of 5.54% compared to the overall reported 2.76% for the general population of women. MSM also have shown prevalent rates of chlamydia and gonorrhoea according to the data provided.
In past reports, the ECDC promoted sexual health education as a way to encourage proper testing and treatment, which can help reduce STI transmission. All four of the STIs focused on in the study are potentially curable with antibiotics and other treatments.
The ECDC also suggests that more strategies to make sexual education and healthcare regularly available will help fight the spread.
Preventative measures have become more accessible in more countries in recent years. In France, for example, condoms are freely available to young people under the age of 26.
This review also emphasised that to combat the rising spread of STIs, further research is vital, especially on high-risk populations.
Finally, the ECDC advises European countries to gather more data about understudied populations such as sex workers to create better prevention strategies.
“Data gaps hamper the ability to fully understand the extent of STI spread and ascertain vulnerabilities in certain populations,” the ECDC stated in their report.
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