Sexual disease epidemic escalates

The sexual diseases epidemic is getting worse, figures released today show.

The soaring rates of infection are blamed on a lack of effective education in schools and long waits to see doctors in specialist clinics.

In some areas of London, people with symptoms are being turned away from genitourinary medicine clinics and told to come back in two weeks. Elsewhere the wait can be up to two months. Most centres keep some appointments back so urgent cases can be seen.

Tomorrow the Government's chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, is expected to condemn the long waiting times in his annual report, but staff working in sexual health say the service desperately needs more funds. In the past six years there has been a 139 per cent rise in chlamydia, which can cause infertility, and a 107 per cent rise in gonorrhoea. Syphilis, which was largely thought to have been eradicated and can cause blindness and paralysis up to 10 years after infection, has risen eightfold.

David Hinchcliffe, chairman of the Commons health select committee which last year produced a report into the state of sexual health

services, said Britain was lagging behind the rest of the developed world and was "still in the dark ages".

He said: "People desperately wanting help, advice and treatment are being turned away in their hundreds every week. But we were astounded at the complete ignorance of vast numbers of young people on what we would have thought was basic information in relation to their own well-being."

Many of the new cases of STIs are in teenagers and school pupils say the education they receive is irrelevant to them. The curriculum is based on teaching the biology of sex - matters relating to condom use, relationships and where to get help are skimmed over in little detail.

Anne Weyman, chief executive of the FPA, formerly the Family Planning Association, said more should be done in schools. "We don't get the education we should have and there are not enough teachers in secondary schools to provide it properly," she said.

Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley called for a 1980sstyle sexual diseases campaign. The "tombstone" adverts 20 years ago helped reduce the impact of HIV and Aids but those messages have not been carried through to the next generation.

He said: "You can't reproduce the Eighties campaign, but you do have to influence the population at large. They are still relatively ignorant about the rise in sexually transmitted infections."