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Sexual health: sexually transmitted infections

The Sexually Transmitted Infection Epidemiology Advisory Group (STIEAG), which is jointly organised by Health Protection Scotland and ISD Scotland, publishes an annual report each year on sexually transmitted infections in Scotland. The annual report brings together information from a number of sources, including laboratories, genito-urinary medicine (GUM) clinics, and primary care, and also some of the more specialised data collection systems relating to HIV.

The STIEAG has so far published two annual reports:

The 2005 report highlights the following key epidemiological facts and figures, and changes between 2004 and 2005:

  • Genito-urinary medicine (GUM) clinic workload: a 10% increase in workload was observed.
  • Genital chlamydia: numbers of diagnoses increased by 8% to 17,289; more than half were managed in non-GUM clinic settings. Chlamydia predominantly affects young people.
  • Pelvic inflammatory disease and ectopic pregnany: no evidence of a rise in the levels of hospital admissions for these conditions was evident.
  • Gonorrhoea: the number of diagnoses increased by 7% to 904; half of cases were men who had sex with men (MSM).
  • Genital herpes: the number of diagnoses increased by 4% to 1,332; a 9% increase in women and a 4% decrease in men was observed.
  • Infectious syphilis: the number of diagnoses remained static at 188; 91% of cases were MSM.
  • Genital warts: the number of diagnoses increased by 3% to 6,451; this is the outcome of the most common acute viral STI (human papilloma virus) diagnosed in the GUM clinic setting.
  • HIV infection: the number of diagnoses increased by 11% to 405; this is the highest annual number of newly identified cases on record.

The 2005 report was published at the same time as the Health Protection Agency's UK report A complex picture: HIV and other sexually transmitted infections in the United Kingdom 2006. This enabled readers to see the Scottish information in the context of the situation in the rest of the UK.

For further information and statistics on sexually transmitted infections in Scotland, see the sexual health pages on the ISD Scotland website.