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Six-month chlamydia screening urged for under-25s
06/02/2001 13:10 - (SA)
Patricia Reaney
London - Sexually active women aged up to
25 should be screened every six months for chlamydia, a
sexually transmitted disease that can cause infertility, US
researchers said on Tuesday.
Scientists at the Centres for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, said the illness was four
times more common in young women. They are also infected
quicker than women over 25 years old.
"We found the chlamydia incidence rate for females less
than 25 years old to be more than five times greater than in
women more than 25 years old and the median time to diagnosis
of incident infection to be approximately half," Dr Gale
Burstein said in the research published in the journal Sexually
Transmitted Infections.
Speaking in a telephone interview with Reuters, Bursetin
said Chlamydia was a very big problem for women. "For sexually
active females to be able to diagnose and treat new infections
we recommend screening every six months," she said.
Chlamydia is one of the most common sexually transmitted
diseases and the most preventable causes of serious
gynaecological problems.
It affects about three million women in the United States
and in many cases there are no symptoms. The disease can cause
pelvic pain, inflammation of the Fallopian tube, infertility
and increased risk of ectopic pregnancy and HIV infection.
It is treatable with antibiotics.
DNA amplification test
The researchers tested 4 000 sexually active women between
the ages of 12-60 who attended health centres in Baltimore,
Maryland, for 33 months. Almost one in three had chlamydia
compared with fewer than one in 10 in older age groups.
Young women were also nine times as likely to be diagnosed
with the infection more than once during the study period.
The researchers recommended that young women be tested
regularly with a sensitive DNA amplification test.
Burstein said biological and behavioural causes made young
women more vulnerable to chlamydia.
Chlamydia is not as serious in men as it is in women. So
far there is no clear evidence to suggest that chlamydia
infection in males is involved in infertility.
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