SYPHILIS cases are at their highest since World War Two, new figures have revealed.
A report by the Terrence Higgins Trust and British Association for Sexual Health & HIV (BASHH) said STI rates are “unacceptably high”, leaving “overstretched” sexual health services “struggling to cope.”
There were 447,694 new diagnoses of STIs in 2018 – a rise of 5% from the previous year, according to the sexual health organisations.
The Station of the Nation report found that over the last decade, gonorrhea has risen 249% and syphilis 165%, while rates of chlamydia increased by 6% in 2018.
Trichomoniasis and shigella are less common STIs, however since 2017 there have been 8% and 91% increases in new diagnoses respectively.
But there have been successes in reducing diagnoses of HIV and genital warts.
Genital warts cases have fallen 3% since 2017, while in 2018, there were just over 4,000 new HIV diagnoses (4,044) in England – a 6% drop from the previous year.
The State of the Nation report said there has been a lack of national strategy and that spending on sexual health services has been cut by a quarter since 2014.
