STD? Come clean on the web...
2005-12-16 08:35
Los Angeles - Los Angeles County health officials have opened an internet website on which users can anonymously notify their sex partner of having been infected with a sexually transmitted disease.
The site, www.InSPOTLA.org," which opened on Wednesday, offers different types of electronic postcards to simultaneously e-mail up to six sexual partners of being infected with an STD.
"You're too hot to be out of action," reads one card, featuring the back of a handsome man covering his behind with a towel. "I got diagnosed with an STD since we played. You might want to get checked too."
The site gives information about several of the most common STDs and how to prevent them.
Another card reads: "It's not what you brought to the party, it's what you left with. I left with an STD. You might have too. Get checked soon."
The site was developed by a non-profit group called the Internet Sexuality Information Services, and co-sponsored by the Aids Healthcare Foundation, with funding from the Los Angeles County.
"Face-to-face communication is really the way to go, but some people can't do that," said Karen Mall, Aids Healthcare Foundation's director of prevention and testing.
Some 60 000 residents of Los Angeles County - population 10 million - currently live with the Aids virus, and a quarter of them do not know about it, Mall said.
"This website will be a powerful tool in reducing the spread of STDs, including HIV, in LA County," said Jonathan Fielding, the county public health director.
A similar site was launched in San Francisco in 2004, and 750 people visit it every day, officials say, with some 500 electronic post cards going out each month.