23/11/2005

, Daily Telegraph 15/11/05

Chlamydia, the sexual disease that wrecks fertility, has taken an alarming hold among girls who have under-age sex, prompting calls for clinical testing to be introduced in schools.

At least one in 13 sexually active under-16s is now infected with the disease, with rates of infection among this age group more than doubling in just four years.

Chlamydia, which is passed on through unprotected sex, causes pelvic inflammatory disease, leading to ectopic pregnancies and infertility. Teenage promiscuity is such that those who are cured have a 30 per cent chance of being reinfected within six months.

The scale of the problem is fuelling fears that the Government's current national screening programme will not be enough to target promiscuous children and halt the spread of the disease.

Professor Bill Ledger, of the Jessop Hospital for Women in Sheffield, said: "It is time to destigmatise chlamydia testing and put it on a par with teenagers going for a BCG jab or girls having their rubella jab at 13.

"It could become routine in schools if we could only get rid of the guilt and the shame."

Among women and girls, having at least two sexual partners was associated with up to a 57 per cent increased risk of infection with chlamydia.

But is not just young women who should be targeted, says the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Young men who carry the disease may slip through the net and continue the devastating cycle of infection unless they, too, are tested and treated.

Its president, Professor Allan Templeton, said: "My biggest concern is that there is reinfection going in the circle of young men and women. It is no good targeting the women if we cannot get to the young men, and that can be very difficult. We need to target them."

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