A Scottish study has shown that it is vital to make certain that partners get treated for chlamydia when their sexual partner has a positive chlamydia test.

The researchers have said that for partners, though going to a GUM clinic for a check-up is still the greatest choice, vouchers for treatment really should be deemed as an alternative. They hope this would encourage men and women who are too embarrassed to go to a clinic to get treated.

For the study, the team gave out almost 600 vouchers to men and women who had been diagnosed with chlamydia. The majority of these were girls. The vouchers entitled their partners to go to their nearby pharmacy and receive a free dose of antibiotics, without them having to pay any prescription charges or check out a clinic to themselves have a chlamydia test.

40% of the vouchers handed out had been redeemed, mostly inside a couple of days. four% of the partners chose rather to go to a GUM clinic in individual (or at least, one of the GUM clinics being tracked by the team working on the study. The team do not know whether or not the remaining partners visited their own GP for treatment.

Chlamydia is 1 of the most widespread sexually transmitted infections in the UK and the US, with gonorrhoea also extremely common. Both are typically asymptomatic and frequently unless an individual has a chlamydia or gonorrhoea test, they will be unaware they are infection. This makes it most likely that they will pass the infection on to their partner.

In the US in specific states, they have a system where when somebody has a positive STD test, they are given spare antibiotics which they can then give to their partner. This is not legal in the UK.

Even so, there have been some concerns raised about the feasibility and efficacy of a voucher program for treating partners of men and women who have had a positive diagnosis.

There are fears that such cavalier handing out of antibiotics could lead to resistance creating to antibiotics. There are already concerns that the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhoea is becoming a superbug and at present men and women having a positive gonorrhoea test are being advised to have a re-test after treatment is completed.

Even so at the moment, the possible for chlamydia to grow to be resistant to antibiotics is comparatively remote, compared to the possible positive aspects of the scheme. Certainly if more folks got treated for it then well being officials would stand a much better chance of reducing the sky-high infection rates.

Lead author of the study Dr. Sharon Cameron, of the Dean Terrace Centre in Edinborough, Scotland, stated, “Partners might not feel they have an STI (sexually transmitted infection. They may well be embarrassed to go to a clinic. ( This method) gives people an additional alternative of where they would want to go be treated.”