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Section 6: STIs
C:
Biology &
History
Contents:
The list below names some of the major STIs that affect people. Click on each one to link to external pages which identify some details of its biology, its causes and its impacts:
- Chlamydia (Information from NHS Direct)
- Genital warts (Information from the Health Protection Agency)
- Gonorrhoea (Information from NHS Direct)
- Genital herpes (Information from the Health Protection Agency)
- NSU (non-specific urethritis) (Information from NHS Direct)
- TV (trichomonas vaginitis) (Information from NHS Direct)
- Syphilis (Information from NHS Direct)
- Pubic lice (Information from Brook online)
Alternatively, go to the STI inofmation page on NHS Direct, HPA or Brook online and look up information on the individual infections.
There are more links to helpful pages in the links section of this site.
Public health poster from the 1940s. Click to see a larger version and more.
Historically the two most widely known STIs have been syphilis and gonorrhoea, Syphilis, often styled ‘the English disease' in France and ‘the French disease' in England, has been widely discussed and recognised among many people, both famous (from Henry VIII to James Boswell and Oscar Wilde and Lenin to General Amin) and not so famous. In its advanced and its extreme stages (and like HIV/AIDS it could remain asymptomatic for several years), it can affect the nervous system and was often associated with extreme rage.
Gonorrhoea, commonly known as ‘the clap', was also prevalent in historical Europe , probably affecting such people as Lord Byron, the poet. It seems to have less extreme long term impacts, though it may be a cause of infertility in women if left untreated.
However both these diseases are now much less common than they were, and are both easily controlled by fairly short courses of anti-biotics.
There is now much more public concern over less serious, but more widespread, infections such as chlamydia, now the most common STI in Europe and North America.
The British Government's Department of Health's White Paper of November 2004, Choosing health, recognised that:
as many as one in ten sexually active young women under the age of 25 may be infected with chlamydia. If untreated this can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and infertility .
While much chlamydia infection is asymptomatic (approximately 75% of infected women and 50% of infected men do not experience symptoms, i.e. vaginal or penis discharge or pain in urinating), the increasing prevalence does pose an overall increase health risk of infertility or other indirect complications in men and women.
Click for bigger version
