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A new sexual health study has indicated that British women are neglecting to get themselves tested for HIV.  It is hoped that this new research will act as a ‘wake-up call’ to women in Britain, particularly to the 63% of the participants who believed that they did not need to get tested because they were in a long term relationship.

The study by the Mac Aids Fund was developed to investigate British women’s attitudes towards condoms. The results were worrying; with 82% of British women admitting to having sex without a condom, and a further 35% claiming that they trusted that their partner did not carry the HIV virus.

Despite the fact that cases of HIV and AIDS have tripled in the last ten years a total of 62% of those interviewed claimed they did not consider the disease to be a threat in their community.

Nancy Mahon, executive director of MAC Aids Fund expressed her concern at the findings and claimed that the results indicated the divergence between the perception of the disease and the reality of its prevalence in the UK.

The lack of condom use in Britain has also led to an increase in other sexually transmitted diseases. Cases of gonorrhoea, genital herpes and syphilis have all risen in number in the last decade as have cases of the symptomless condition Chlamydia.

A high profile advertising campaign highlighting the risks of unprotected sex is currently airing on TV and is hoped to raise awareness of the importance of practising safe sex to young people in Britain.

Health officials have said that a change in strategy in fighting HIV could be the key to beating the spread of the life-threatening illness.

They have suggested that testing most of the world’s populations for HIV, or ‘blanket testing’, could see the virus dying out within 40 years.

The plan could see people offered twice-yearly tests for the sexually transmitted infection, with those testing positive immediately put on anti-viral treatment for the rest of their lives. The suggestion comes after clinical trials showed that blanket prescription of ARVs, or antiretroviral drugs, could stop transmission of HIV and halve the number of cases of AIDS-related tuberculosis within 10 years.

Treating patients with ARVs within a year of their diagnosis can not only prevent the HIV from becoming full-blown AIDS, but can reduce the transmission of the virus tenfold, which eventually could force the virus to die out.

Scientists are planning to launch large-scale trials of the new strategy in Africa and the US, results of which will decide whether the plan will be adopted as public health policy. It is thought that in South Africa alone, the cost to implement the program would be between $3bn and $4bn per annum.

Speaking to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Brian Williams of the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis said that he believed that when all costs were factored in, the cost of the antiretroviral drugs would be considerably less than the cost of treating HIV-positive patients for the diseases they eventually develop, only for the patients to eventually die.

He said, “The only thing that’s more expensive is not doing this”, pointing out that young adults in the prime of their life were dying at the moment when they could be contributing to society.

They say abstinence is the best way to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infections and for 1 in 4 women over 35, they are certainly playing their part to keep the STI rates down. A survey has revealed that over 25% of UK women over 35 ‘never’ have sex.

Scotland had the highest proportion of women who don’t ever make love (38%) while in the Midlands 32% of women say they have sex once a week.

The high proportion of women who don’t engage in sex was partly explained when most women said that working every day impacted on their sex lives. It was discovered that the less women work, the more they enjoy their sex lives, with 2/3s of those working part time reporting regular orgasms, compared to just over half who work full time.

Childless women were more likely to have a greater number of orgasms than mothers. 41% of women with no children said that they orgasmed most of the time, falling to 12% for those with one child and 14% for those with two.

26% of women said they were concerned that the menopause would cause them to lose their sex drives, as well as affecting their memory.

The survey was commissioned by Sky Real Lives as part of the launch of their new TV show, The Secret Guide To Women’s Health. Fronted by Colleen Nolan, of the exquisitely annoying Iceland adverts,  the show hopes to provide a platform for women to discuss the health problems they can’t talk about with friends (there seems to be a bit of flawed logic going on there – oh, no, of course most people would rather talk to Colleen Nolan on national TV if they are too embarrassed to speak to their best friends.)

Though scientists were disappointed by a study that showed that the herpes drug aciclovir did not prevent the transmission of HIV from person to person, hope has been raised that the medication could delay the progression of the illness.

Researchers published the results of a study involving 3,3000 African patients in The Lancet, which showed that the easily-accessible anti-viral reduced the risk of the illness progressing by 16%.

Previously studies had shown that aciclovir reduced the levels of HIV in the blood but there was uncertainty as to whether this could slow down how quickly the virus takes hold.

Though they were restrained about the results, calling the effect ‘modest’, the team said that as the treatment was relatively cheap it could be a useful way to help patients with the infection stay health for as long as possible, until they get access to HIV-specific antiretrovirals.

Scientists were encouraged to test the relationship between the herpes treatment and HIV by the fact that in Africa, the majority of patients with HIV also are carrying the Herpes Simplex II virus, also known as genital herpes.

The study saw participants receive either a twice-daily dose of the medication or a placebo and they were monitored for 2 years. By the end of the study, 284 people taking the medication had either seen their CD4 count drop, indicating they should be on antiretrovirals, or had died. This was compared to 324 patients in the placebo group.

While HIV treatment using antiretrovirals is far and away the most effective way to slow the progression of the illness, the team suggested that acyclovir could provide another treatment option, perhaps for patients not yet eligible for antiretroviral treatment.

The herpes medication acyclovir does not diminuish the risk of transmission of the HIV virus, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The conclusions were based on results from a 5-year, international clinical trial. Researchers had hoped that as preliminary studies had shown that acyclovir could decrease the amount of HIV in the blood and urinary tract, this could translate into a reduction of HIV transmission.

At the moment about 90% of people with HIV are thought to be also carrying the HSV-2 virus, which causes herpes. HIV is not only transmitted through blood and bodily fluids but through the ulcers that are associated with genital herpes. People with the Herpes virus are also thought to transmit the HIV virus more effectively.

The study, led by scientists from the University of Washington and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, involved 3,408 couples, one member of whom had HIV, one who did not. Across 14 countries in Africa, the results showed that there were 43 new infections amongst the group given acyclovir, and 41 amongst the group given the placebo.

The difference was ruled to be too small to be statistically significant, proving that the herpes anti-viral medication did not make a difference as to whether someone was more likely to contract HIV. The scientists also discovered that the Herpes virus attracts immune cells called CD4-T to the genital region, what can make it easier for an infection to establish itself or be passed on.

The Government has come under fierce attack by the Public Accounts Committee in the UK Parliament for the way that the execution of the national Chlamydia screening programme has been carried out in England. Detection rates have not reached the levels set down by the Government and as a result there appears to be no demonstrable reduction in infection rates. This latest criticism follows an earlier report by the National Audit Office, which slammed the programme as a waste of public funds.

Chlamydia is known as the silent infection as it can cause little or no symptoms but can cause serious health complications, including infertility, if left untreated. In 2008 there were 210,000 diagnoses of Chlamydia in the UK. Although testing rates have been pushed up to 16% in the year 2008-09 from 5% in the previous year, experts warn that this is nowhere near the level that it needs to be to halt the rise in infection rates.

Chlamydia is easily detected and very easily treated with antibiotics such as Azithromycin or Doxycycline but there is resistance to getting tested as people think that this is an issue that does not affect them. Most people assume that if they do not have any symptoms then they cannot possibly have a sexually transmitted infection but this is simply not the case.

Getting tested could not be easier these days. Even if you do not have time to go to your local GUM clinic there is a free postal service available in some Primary Care Trust areas for people under 25. If you do not qualify for free testing then there are a number of private clinics in the UK that provide a highly reliable laboratory screening service by post for very reasonable costs. We normally recommend The STI Clinic as they have a 24 hour results service and they pay for your treatment if you test positive for anything. Do yourself a favour – get tested just to be sure.

A debate within the medical community in the United States is beginning to take hold regarding the vaccination of boys against HPV. Girls are regularly vaccinated in the US and UK using either Gardasil or Cervarix because of the high risk of developing cervical cancer.

The HPV family of viruses can cause genital warts and some types of cancers, including but not limited to, cervical cancer. The virus is spread through skin to skin contact. Gardasil has been licensed in the US for treatment in boys to protect them against genital warts and penile and rectal cancers. Although Gardasil is not licensed for this purpose in the UK, some doctors are prepared to prescribe it “off license” for these purposes. Most of my reasonably well off gay friends have been to a private clinic in Harley Street to have the Gardasil vaccination as MSM (men who have sex with men) tend to be more prone to rectal cancers. Many people who have had the vaccination and who previously suffered regular outbreaks of genital warts have recorded a noticeable improvement by way of a reduction of outbreaks.

The debate going on in the US on this subject relates to cost in relation to benefits. The benefits are clear: men who have been vaccinated will be protected against certain of the human papillomaviruses that cause genital warts and certain type of cancers but moreover, they will not be passing the virus on to female partners which would otherwise put them at a higher risk of developing cervical cancer. The question is would a mass vaccination policy contribute in a meaningful way to the overall incidence of high risk HPV infections that can cause certain types of cancers? Where you can afford to pay the large cost of this vaccination then it is a “no brainer” but from a public policy perspective in the UK, there is no way that this sort of mass vaccination programme for boys will ever be sanctioned.

Our sister clinic www.thesticlinic.com launched a new initiative – the STIQ Day. The day was launched to raise awareness of sexually transmitted infections and the importance of regularly getting checked for them and is supported by the Terence Higgins Trust and Mates condoms.

No one likes to think they might have caught something, but the awareness day is designed to encourage people to take the smart route and get checked regularly, before an infection has a chance to damage their health.

The number of people catching a sexually transmitted infection has been rising regularly over the past decade.  It is estimated that 1 in 10 people under 25 are carrying Chlamydia, while experts have been warning that the older generation are not immune either. More and more people starting new relationships in later life means that more and more over-50s are catching infections.

Chlamydia and Gonorrhoea, two of the most common sexually transmitted infections in the UK, are easily treated but when left undiagnosed they can damage fertility. It seems obvious that getting checked out is infinitely preferable to more serious health problems later on but far too many people still don’t go for regular checks.

We’re really pleased this day has been created to raise awareness of the issue and hope that people will be encouraged to visit their doctor, local GUM clinic or go online for a test. To read more about the day, The Sun newspaper has written an article about it, or you can visit the website – http://www.stiq.co.uk

A major trial of a new gel that scientists hoped would reduce the risk of HIV infection in women has produced disappointing results, showing that it did not significantly reduce infection rates.

The trial saw 9,385 women in four African countries given either the vaginal microbicide or a placebo gel. Previously a smaller trial had suggested that the gel could reduce the risk of catching the disease by up to 30%.

However the Microbicides Development Agency, a not-for-profit partnership of 16 African and European research agencies, failed to show the gel was any kind of effective protection. As the trial was so large, the results can be considered conclusive.

The results will be a huge disappointment for HIV workers in Africa, where infections rates amongst women are extremely high. In sub-Saharan Africa, women are the most badly affected by the AIDS epidemic, with 60% of those infected believed to be female.

Women in Africa are at particularly risk of infection as they are frequently forced to take part in unsafe sex, as well as being biologically more vulnerable to infection than men. It had been hoped that a gel the women could apply themselves could offer them much needed protection, even if they could not convince their partners to use a condom.

Though the gel did not work, the women who took part in the study were given free condoms and access to counselling about safe sex.

The lead researcher on the study, Dr. Sheen McCormack, described the results as ‘disheartening’  but said that the trial itself showed the importance of large trials that offered definitive results about the efficacy of a product.

As experts faced with the huge AIDS infection rates in Africa and Asia admit that condoms alone have not managed to halt the spread of the virus, scientists will continue to search for a vaccine and other ways of preventing its transmission.

Today, the world is marking World Aids Day. While the disease has become a crisis in Africa and Asia, it is often overlooked that HIV and AIDS are also a grave concern for Western countries. In the UK alone, 80,000 people are living with HIV in the UK and infection rates are going up each year.

Experts believe that a quarter of people living in the UK with HIV are still undiagnosed. While the gay and bisexual community are still the most affected groups, straight people are still at risk of contracting the infection and rates of infection amongst this group are increasing.

Unfortunately, the stigma attached to HIV in the UK that it is a ‘gay’ illness means that many straight people do not consider themselves to be at risk and are less likely to get regular HIV tests, crucial if they have had more than one partner , unprotected sex or have casual sexual partners.

Black and minority communities are especially at risk, with 2,790 new diagnosis made this group, more than the 2,760 new cases reported amonst men who have sex with men.

Thankfully however in the UK patients have access to the best treatment. Whereas once HIV was seen as a death sentence, now those who take appropriate anti-viral drugs can enjoy life expectancies only a small amount less than the UK average. Quick diagnosis is crucial as the sooner treatment begins the longer the overall life expectancy – so getting more people to go more regularly for an HIV test is of paramount importance.

The same is not true of Africa and Asia. The majority of the 33.4 million people living with HIV are from those continents and in 2008 there were 2 million deaths. Anti-viral medications are frequently difficult to come by in developing countries and millions of children have already become ‘AIDS orphans’, after both their parents died of the disease.

Today, governments across the world vowed to do more to eradicate the AIDS epidemic. In South Africa, where up to 20% of the adult population are infected, President Jacob Zuma promised that all infected children under 1 would receive treatment for the disease and committed himself to extending treatment to pregnant women. Gordon Brown and David Cameron recorded a message in support of the day, while the EU called for a strengthening in the response to the disease.

Our sister clinic The STI Clinic is a proud sponsor of World Aids Day and we hope that you will buy and wear a red ribbon. You may also want to consider donating to the National Aids Trust or to Avert, who work in the developing world supporting communities in their fight against the disease.

Over the last 30 years, the sexually transmitted infection syphilis has fallen off the radar somewhat. However new Scottish figures have shown that levels of the infection are the highest they have been for 56 years.

As part of a report into the sexual health of the nation, Health Protection Scotland and the Information Services Division (both part of the NHS) released data showing that in 2008, 264 cases of the infection were diagnosed, 15 more than the previous year. This is the highest annual total since the mid-fifties.

Over the past 5 years, the number of diagnosis at GUM clinics has risen by 28%. The figures also showed that despite the 15-25 age group only representing 13% of the Scottish population, they accounted for 75% of all cases of chlamydia.

Gonorrhoea was also on the rise, with 1,644 people diagnosed with the infection at their local GUM clinic. This was a 6% rise on the previous year and there was an even bigger increase of 30% in the number of cases diagnosed in women.

One of the report’s authors, Dr. Lesley Wallace of Health Protection Scotland, said that the results showed that there needed to be a shift in sexual behaviour, with an increased emphasis on safe sex and regular sexual health check ups. He added that this was especially important for those with new partners or those who had casual sexual partners.

The Scottish minister for Public Health Shona Robison said of the report that they knew that STI rates were increasing and that ministers were planning on working with the NHS to ‘drive down’ the rates of STIs and improve education about safe sex.

Two of the biggest pharmaceutical firms this week took the unusual move of pooling their HIV treatments. The new group has been named Viiv Healthcare and was formed by Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline.

Viiv will take over GSK’s collection of HIV medicines, which are becoming slightly outdated (one otf their biggest sellers Combivir is due to lose its patent in 3 years) and Pzifer’s new and largely untested drugs. The chief executive of Viiv Dominique Limet described the newer medications as the ‘key driver’ for growth.

At the moment, Viiv has 11 marketed medicines and 7 different molecules.The large part of the start-up money, £250 million in total, has been contributed by GSK and they will be the major shareholders, with 85% of the equity However this equity split could change depending on which company’s research and products deliver the most profit. The drugs in Pzifer’s portfolio are likely to be profitable if they go successfully through clinical trials.

Dr Limet said that he has not ruled out making a public offering of the company in the future, but this will depend on the shareholders. He added that as the structure of the company is unique in the industry due to the size of the two companies involved, the priority at the moment was making the structure work.

He concluded that access and affordability of HIV drugs was a priority and said that the “challenging landscape” of HIV treatment made new research a priority.

Look at any of the slew of adverts for perfume, make-up or clothes and the message coming across is very clear – thin equals sexy, erotic and desirable. However, good news has been announced for everyone packing a few extra pounds – bigger men and women are apparently better in bed.

The newspapers have been using this as a fantastic excuse to compare skinny and curvier celebrities, with the Mirror running the headline, “Kelly Brooke is better in bed than Cheryl Cole!” (conjuring up images of a staff writer desperately trying to kid himself his knowledge is based on personal experience rather than lustful conjecture).

In a study commissioned by bedmakers Silentnight, 89% of men said that they preferred curvier sexual partners to  thin women. Of those men, 56% of them said that they thought partners with curves were more considerate about pleasing them when in bed.

Furthermore, when the romping is over, you’re more likely to sleep better if your partner is curvy. During the two-year study, it was discovered that thin people toss and turn up to 10 times a night on average, whereas those who are heavier only turn over twice.

It is thought that this is due to thin people suffering more from their pressure points being triggered while they sleep, decreasing their circulation and forcing them to turn more often to relieve the pressure.

The company’s sleep scientist Iftikhar Mirza commented that curvy men and women ought to be ‘feeling pretty happy right now’ as not only were they considered good in bed but were also better to sleep next to.

A new study, published in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections, has shown that men who use Viagra or other erectile dysfunction medications may be more likely to have the condom break during sexual intercourse.

The researchers recruited 440 men who used condoms when having vaginal sex who also used medication to help them achieve an erection. The volunteers were recruited using newspaper and internet advertisements and asked to fill in questionnaires about their most recent sexual experience.

1 in 10 of the men had used an erectile dysfunction treatment on the occasions and for 12% of those men the condom broke, compared to 5% of men who did not use medication. The researchers also discovered that men who reported having intercourse for longer were also more likely to report the condom having broken.

When the results of the questionnaire were analysed to take into account other factors, it was discovered that erectile dysfunction medication remained a significant factor in the condom breaking. Men using treatments like Viagra were up to 4 times more likely to have this happen to them.

The team who lead the study have suggested that the results may be due to Viagra and other similar medications causing increased swelling when a man achieves an erection, possibly causing the condom to be tighter. They have said that men using medications might be advised to use condoms large enough to accommodate the enhanced erection and warned that longer-lasting sex might be associated with condom breakage.

However there is some doubt about the results as the same team did a similar study last year, where 7% of the respondents used an erectile dysfunction drug, but no increased likelihood of condom breakage was noted.

The researchers have called for there to be further investigation of the possible link between prophylactics failing and the usage of impotence drugs.

Hopes have been raised that scientists have come closer than ever before to developing a vaccine for the HIV virus. A team say that they have created the first experimental vaccine that cuts the risk of infection considerably.

It is a combination of two earlier vaccines, with Sanofi-Aventis’ ALVAC HIV used as the primary vaccine and AIDSVAC B/E as the booster. It was trialled on 16,000 people in Thailand in the largest ever HIV vaccine trial. The results showed that the patient’s chances of contracting HIV were reduced by nearly a third.

The trial was overseen by the Thai authorities, with support from the U.S military, and received a large amount of funding from the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases as well as the US army . Thailand was chosen as the site of the trial due to the high rate of HIV infection in the country, as well as their developed medical infrastructure and strong commitment to the project.

The trial started in 2003 and was an extremely complicated project. 60,000 people were initially interviewed before 16,402 people were chosen to take part. By the end of the trial, 0.8% of the trial group had contracted HIV, which included 52% of people who had received the vaccine and 74% who had not.

The scientists are still unsure about the mechanism of the vaccine, as it did not seem to reduced the viral load of HIV in those who were vaccinated. There is also uncertainty over how the vaccine affects someone’s likelihood of contracting the infection in the long-term and over how effective it is in particularly high risk groups, such as intravenous drug users, men who have sex with other men and prostitutes.

The HIV vaccines product manager for the US army called the trial results the first evidence of a safe and effective vaccine being available and the hope has been expressed that the trial could encourage new donor funding and interest from companies working in the field.

Lloyds Pharmacy has developed a new ‘online calculator’ which enables people to calculate the number of indirect sexual partners they have had over their lifetime in order to educate people about the risks of unprotected intercourse.

Despite the fact that men claim to have had an average of 9 partners, and women an average of 6.3, experts warn that by having unprotected sex people are exposed to the sexual infections of literally hundreds and thousands of other people.

The online calculator, humorously called Sex Degrees of Separation, uses data collected from more than 6000 British adults. The way it works is that when people enter the age range of each partner, the calculator uses its database to work out how many previous sexual partners people within that age range have had on average. This process is then repeated for five further ‘generations’ of partner. When these numbers are added together they give a ‘sex degrees of separation’ total.

Research by the The Health Protection Agency suggests that cases of sexually transmitted infections rose by half a per cent to 399,738 last year. This coincides with an increase of eight per cent in Chlamydia between 2006 and 2008.

The head of sexual health at Lloyds pharmacy Claire Kerr believes that people should be aware that when they have unprotected sex with one person that they are, in effect, sleeping with that persons previous partners, and the previous partners of those previous partners and so on.

She added that the simple way to avoid exposing oneself to the dangers of sexually transmitted infections is to use condoms and to get regular sexual health checks when necessary. This is particularly important because the majority of STI’s are easy to treat but, when left untreated, can lead to serious health implications in the future.

The connection between unhealthy living and erectile dysfunction has long been highlighted by the medical community and the media. However, new research from The Second University of Naples has established that women should be wary too due to a strong link between high cholesterol and female sexual dysfunction.The research found that women who had high cholesterol had not only their general health affected but also their ability to be sexually aroused. High cholesterol, also known as hyperlipidemia, causes arteries to get blocked restricting the flow of blood around the body. As with men, women need an increase in blood flow to their sexual organs in order to achieve good sexual functioning.