Strategy to double sex bug testing

SCREENING rates for chlamydia doubled when women were asked to have the test at the same time as their Pap smear, prompting a renewed push for more tests for the country's most common sexually transmitted infection.

Sexual health experts have long called for chlamydia screening to be done as part of routine health care for young women, particularly those in the 20-to-30 age group, yet governments and doctors have baulked at the idea.

A simple test and an easy one-dose antibiotic treatment are available but many young women miss out, leaving them vulnerable to infertility, pregnancy complications and other health problems, said Francis Bowden, professor of medicine at the Australian National University's medical school.

He and his colleagues found that combining the chlamydia test with the Pap smear, which tests for signs of cervical cancer, would significantly improve screening rates. The study, involving more than 31 general practitioner clinics in the ACT and published yesterday in the Medical Journal of Australia, also found between 4 and 6 per cent of women aged 20 to 30 had the infection.

"This is not the final answer to chlamydia screening though … as men have not been targeted," Professor Bowden said.

More than 47,000 people have chlamydia - the vast majority of them under 30 - and rates of infection had increased by up to 20 per cent each year since 1998, figures from the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research showed.

Many more thousands of cases remained undiagnosed, warned Basil Donovan, professor of sexual health at the centre.

"Only about one in 10 women who should be screened have been screened, and we are not going to get anywhere until we are screening up around 70 per cent, which is the same coverage as the Pap smears," Professor Donovan said. GPs have been reluctant to raise the issue of screening with patients for fear of offending them.

"However, we did a study a few years ago where we offered routine screening to women and we got a 97 per cent participation rate, because as soon as they knew everyone was being tested, no one had a problem with it," he said.

Source:www.smh.com.au