Month focuses attention on STDs
By Shauntel Lowe
April 18, 2006 9:00 p.m.
As April is Sexually Transmitted Diseases Awareness Month, more
attention is being drawn to the prevention and treatment of
STDs.
An estimated 19 million new cases of sexually transmitted
infections occur each year, with almost half of them among people
ages 15 to 24, according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention Web site.
Genital human papillomavirus, an STD which has been shown to
cause cervical cancer, has garnered significant attention in recent
months as research companies draw closer to making available an HPV
vaccine, pending approval from the Food and Drug
Administration.
At least 80 percent of women will have been infected with
genital HPV by the age of 50, according to the CDC Web site.
Many health advocates are pushing to make HPV vaccines mandatory
for girls ages 10 to 14 in public schools, but many social
conservatives oppose making the vaccine a requirement because they
say it will encourage teens to have premarital sex.
One of the dangers of HPV is that it can be asymptomatic, though
genital warts may appear.
As with most STDs, having multiple sexual partners increases an
individual’s chance of contracting HPV.
“Most people develop it through the early sexual activity
phase and maintain it until the age of 30. Then most of the time
it’s gone (after the body develops antibodies and fights off
the disease),” said William Schmalhorst, director of
laboratories for the Physicians Automated Lab in Bakersfield.
Schmalhorst said the ThinPrep Pap test, in which sample body
cells gathered from a woman’s cervix are put into a special
liquid and mixed, is the test of choice for HPV.
The test is offered at the UCLA Arthur Ashe Student Health and
Wellness Center, said Edward Wiesmeier, director of the Ashe
Center.
In a conventional Pap test, cells are smeared on a slide by
doctors and then examined. Schmalhorst said the ThinPrep test has
increased the sensitivity of detection of problems with the
cervical cells.
The test is also commonly used to detect chlamydia and
gonorrhea.
Chlamydia, which can cause infertility in women, is the most
commonly reported STD with 929,462 cases reported in 2004 ““
up 51,984 from 2003, according to the CDC Web site.
Joe Iniguez, director for the UCLA Black/Latino AIDS Project,
said not getting tested for STDs regularly could present problems
for women later in life.
“You won’t know you have chlamydia. You’ll
find out when you’re 30 and trying to have kids but you
can’t,” he said.
BLAIDS members travel to Los Angeles area high schools with
concentrated populations of black and Latino students to educate
them about STDs, pregnancy and contraception.
Iniguez said one thing they emphasize to the high school
students that is also relevant to college students is that STDs can
be transmitted even when individuals are not having
intercourse.
“You can get STDs without having sex. Simple skin-to-skin
contact (can transmit STDs). That’s something a lot of
students aren’t aware of … college students as well. Some
of the activities they do, although not sex, are putting them at
risk for an STD,” he said.
Having multiple sex partners, not using condoms consistently,
and not being aware of their STD status puts people at high risk
for contracting HIV and other STDs, said Rosa Solorio, assistant
professor of family medicine at the UCLA David Geffen School of
Medicine.
“Early detection is a benefit to everybody,” she
said.
Solorio said women who already have STDs are at greater risk of
contracting HIV because many STDs damage the epithelium layer in
the vagina which facilitates the entry of HIV.
She also said having multiple partners is a major risk because
“you don’t know how many other partners (each) partner
had.”
Miriam Gerace, senior communications coordinator for Planned
Parenthood of Los Angeles, said that Planned Parenthood offers
testing for STDs such as chlamydia and gonorrhea in addition to the
well-publicized abortion procedures it offers.
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