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SPAIN-HEALTH-YOUTH
Spain urges youth to always carry condoms amid STI rise
MADRID, June 13, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Spain will launch a campaign to urge
young people to “always carry a condom on them” as the number of sexually
transmitted infections (STI) surges, the government said Thursday.
The news comes a week after the World Health Organization expressed alarm
at the lack of progress on curbing STI or diseases (STD), with one expert
warning of complacency as dating apps spur sexual activity.
In Spain, videos and ads will be posted from Monday on social networks,
music platforms and media that 14- to 29-year-olds most follow, the health
ministry said.
“It’s normal that you want to do it in your parents’ bed. What isn’t
normal is that you want to complicate your life,” reads one ad, going on to
show the number of new cases of HIV and other infections.
In a statement, the health ministry urged “everyone — and particularly
the young — to always have a condom on them and use it.”
“The use of condoms has dropped among the 15- to 18-year-olds over the
last few years,” Health Minister Maria Luisa Carcedo told reporters.
She said there was complacency over STI, including infection by the HIV
virus that causes AIDS.
The campaign is a “first shock measure” to challenge the rise of STI among
young people, the statement said.
The number of cases of gonorrhoea, for instance, has risen an average of
more than 26 percent annually between 2013 and 2017, according to the
ministry.
Syphilis “has risen less but in 2017, it reached its highest peak since
the start of statistics in Spain: 10.61 infections per 100,000 residents
compared to 2.57 in 1995.”
The highest rates of chlamydia, meanwhile, are among 20- to 24-year-olds
and particularly women, the ministry said.
In 2017, Spain registered close to 24,000 cases of infection by
gonorrhoea, syphilis, chlamydia and LGV, a sexually-transmitted disease,
according to the statement.
BSS/AFP/SSS/2036 hrs