Promiscuous behaviour by young holidaymakers has triggered a rise in sexually-transmitted diseases, a study has found.
Many young people are having unprotected sex while abroad and ending up in hospital clinics when they come home, the BBC reports.
The study has been carried out by Dr Karen Rogstad of Sheffield’s Royal Hallamshire Hospital and has been published in the British Medical Journal.
The Health Protection Agency said more than 1.5 million people attended genitourinary medicine clinics in the UK in 2002, up 15 per cent on then year before.
Cases of sex infections like chlamydia, syphilis, gonorrhoea and genital herpes were all on the increase, and between 2000 and 2002, 69 per cent of men in the UK who acquired HIV from heterosexual sex were infected while abroad.
One in five of all cases of syphilis were from sexual contacts abroad and nine per cent of people with gonorrhoea reported sex abroad in the preceding three months, Dr Rogstad’s study said.
At one clinic, research showed 25 per cent of patients had slept with a new partner while on holiday – and 66 per cent had not used condoms.
“Holidays are increasingly being taken abroad and in far flung locations,” said Dr Rogstad. “Preventative advice should be offered to all holidaymakers, particularly those going to the developing world.”
