Alcohol-fuelled casual sex blamed for rise in infections

Casual sexual behaviour, often fuelled by alcohol, is causing an alarming rise in sexually transmitted infections among teenage girls and young men, the Health Protection Agency said yesterday.

Gay men are also contracting increasing numbers of infections, which suggests the fear of HIV/Aids has decreased and that more people are having unsafe sex.

The overall number of infections went up last year by 2%, from 368,341 to 376,508, which the HPA says may suggest a slowdown in what had appeared to be a rapid rise over the past few years. But there are real concerns about the behaviour of young people and gay men. Among teenage girls aged 16 to 19 the numbers catching genital herpes - an unpleasant sexual infection which is treatable but never completely cured - are up by 16%.

"We are really quite concerned about genital herpes," said Gwenda Hughes of the HPA's centre for infections. "It is a lifelong infection and not curable. It is treatable but people can experience severe recurrences. It is also associated with quite a lot of stigma." Read more