Sexually Transmitted Infections
8.62 Sexual health is identified as one of the key national public health priorities for action due to concern about increasing diagnosed HIV and sexually transmitted infections, and also the continued high level of teenage conceptions. Sexually transmitted infections are common and associated with serious long-term complications such as pelvic inflammatory disease, chronic abdominal pain, infertility, ectopic pregnancy, stillbirth and genital cancers. Sexual ill health particularly affects women, young people, certain minority ethnic groups and men who have sex with men. There is also a strong link with social deprivation.
8.63 The HIV infection incidence rate in the South West more than doubled between 2000 and 2005 and this increase is greater than that observed in England as a whole. Diagnoses of chlamydia, syphilis, herpes and genital warts also continued to increase in the South West in 2005. The increase in diagnosed chlamydia between 2004 and 2005 was greater in the South West than England as a whole. However this could be due to increased awareness and testing for this condition which often has no symptoms in the early stages. Diagnoses of gonorrhoea, in contrast, have reduced over the past three years in England and the South West. The reasons for this are not clear.