Many people may have fallen through the gaps and could be living with undiagnosed STIs – Gay Times Magazine

This year Sexual Health Week runs from 13 to 19 September. Many LGBTQ+ people will be more aware of HIV Testing Week and World AIDS Day, but Sexual Health Week is a great time to reflect, not just on HIV, but on sexual health more broadly.

A lot of sexual health services had to temporarily shut when the coronavirus pandemic first hit the UK and during the successive lockdowns, although almost all clinics are now back to business. While this did make testing for blood borne viruses, such as HIV and Hep C – in addition to STIs – more difficult, organisations responded quickly to increase the availability of home testing. This was the case not just for HIV, but also for chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis.

One positive which we can take from the past 18 months is that, while a large number of us will go back to our usual visits to the Sexual Health Clinic, others have used home testing for the first time. As campaigners we always knew home testing was an important tool. It became even more important during the lockdowns and the increased familiarity with and awareness of this form of testing will be a lasting legacy. It remains vital that testing, including home testing, is normalised, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, age, race, ethnicity or HIV status.

As the Terrence Higgins Trust explained to me, the groups most impacted by STIs are young people, gay and bi men, people of Black ethnicity and people living with HIV. The national data set relating to STIs from 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic, showed a continuous upwards trend in terms of STIs across the UK, although HIV diagnoses were falling and the prevalence of hepatitis C declining.

Public Health England recently released their STI statistics for 2020. There was a fall of 32% compared to 2019, although it is unclear if this was as a consequence of decreased sexual activity or because of limited access to in-person testing at Sexual Health Clinics. Many people may have fallen through the gaps and could be living with undiagnosed and untreated STIs. It therefore still remains difficult to say exactly what the implications of the coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns will be for STIs. 

Overall STI diagnoses remain high and the true effect of the coronavirus pandemic on STI rates may not be apparent until we see next year’s statistics (or even the year after). This would give a better sense of whether diagnoses dropped due to complications with accessing services, or due to changes in behaviour resulting from the lockdowns.