Couver Health Journal

Archive for February 19th, 2010

Leeds, home to a massive student population and thriving bar and club scene, is to be the target of a new campaign by the sexual health charity The Terence Higgins Trust to reduce the levels of chlamydia.

The organisation is launching a new scheme which will see chlamydia tests distributed in the city’s nightspots, in an attempt to encourage people to take a chlamydia test during a night out.

The students and young people will be offered a urine sample pot, which they will be asked to fill in the toilets of the pub or club. Volunteers for THT will then collect the pots and send them off to the laboratory for testing.

The process is similar to chlamydia home testing, where those in at-risk groups are sent urine sample pots which they themselves post back to the laboratory.

The Centre Manager for THT in Leeds said, “Many young people feel nervous about taking an STI test, but they needn’t. Most modern tests are quick and non-invasive; after they’ve done it once, people often wonder what they were so worried about. We hope that, by actually getting out into the bars and clubs and showing young people how easy it is, they’ll be encouraged to test for STIs year after year.”

The charity is trying the initiative as part of an ongoing attempt to bring down the rates of undiagnosed chlamydia in the city. While more and more people are going for chlamydia testing, partly due to various high-profile campaigns and partly due to easier testing methods like chlamydia home testing, it is believed that extremely high numbers of people are still unaware they are carrying the infection.

For many people who are infected with the chlamydia virus, they will experience no symptoms, so often getting a chlamydia test is the only way they will find out whether they are infected.

While the infection can be easily treated with a short course of anti-biotics, left untreated it can cause long term damage to fertility, especially in women. It can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, which itself is linked to blocked fallopian tubes and the risk of miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy.

The National Chlamydia Screening Service is the government body charged with encouraging more people to get tested, especially those in the 15-24 age bracket, who are most likely to be infected. They are meant to achieve a 17% testing rate for those in the age brackets.

However there has been criticism that the Chlamydia Screening Service have allowed regional efforts to become fragmented, leading to duplication both of time and money. Success in achieving targets tends to vary widely from region to region, depending on what strategies have been used to encourage testing.

The Terence Higgins Trust have also invited bar owners to contact them if they would like them to come to their premises to offer the service.