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UK Schools To Test Kids
For Sex Diseases
Pilot Scheme Follows Sharp Rise In Infection Rate
By James Meikle
Health Correspondent
The Guardian - UK
9-11-3


Secondary school pupils are to be screened for sexually transmitted diseases to curb sharply rising infection rates.
 
Testing of teenagers for chlamydia, an infection thought to occur in one in 10 sexually active British women, will offered in two mixed schools in York in a scheme which, if successful, will be encouraged across the country.
 
The experiment, provisionally backed by the head teachers but not yet formally approved by governors, follows recommendations by the Commons select committee on health which wanted more done to ensure young people receive sexual advice and help.
 
Colleges, nightclubs and sports clubs will also be invited to become test screening sites as ministers prepare to gamble that they can stem sexual diseases in young people through controversial schemes, even in schools where simple sex education can cause furious rows.
 
One in a hundred girls aged 16 to 19 is diagnosed with chlamydia, the highest rate for women, while in men the age group at most risk is 20- to 24-year-olds. It is easily spread through unprotected sex.
 
The number of known cases in England, Wales and Northern Ireland rose by 14% last year to 81,680 - after more than doubling in the five years before that - but most cases go undetected because up to five in 10 men and seven in 10 women carrying the infection have no symptoms.
 
Women with untreated chlamydia can develop pelvic inflammatory disease, leading to infertility or lower chances of conception. Babies may be born with conjunctivitis or pneumonia. Official advice recommends people diagnosed with chlamydia should also undergo checks for other sexually transmitted diseases, although chlamydia tests, increasingly using urine samples, are simpler to administer outside formal clinics.
 
The move in York is part of the expansion of chlamydia screening, trialled in conventional clinics, into a national programme. Other experiments are also planned. In Cornwall college students are to be included in "Pee in a Pot" days, and screening will also be offered in the workplace, including armed forces bases.
 
The York schools, whose identities have not been widely publicised, already offer an emergency contraception service as well as condoms and advice to young people aged 11-18. Ginny Smith, the nurse adviser for teenage sexual health at the York Health Service NHS trust, said last night: "Anybody who attends for emergency contraception is at risk of sexually transmitted infection by definition because they have had unprotected sex."
 
Screening would however be offered to other pupils, including boys. At present emergency contraception was not limited to any particular age but staff would be "concerned" if a very young pupil asked for it. There would be a full investigation and parents would be told.
 
The Department of Health in England, in its response yesterday to the Commons committee report, "entirely agrees" with the MPs' call for testing outside clinics. The committee had praised a centre at Paignton community college, Devon, but said opposition from governors had prevented such examples being followed.
 
The Tic Tac project at Paignton involves health professionals giving confidential advice to pupils. They sometimes offer pregnancy testing and emergency contraception. The college head, Jane English, said the governors might consider chlamydia screening too once they saw the outcome of the York experiment.
 
The government also accepted the committee's demands that there should no more than 48-hour waits for sexual health checks. David Hinchliffe, the committee chairman, said: "People are are being turned away in their hundreds from some clinics.A significant number would go on and infect other people."
 
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
 
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1039583,00.html

 

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