adminHerald Reporter
More than 45 000 people in Harare sought treatment at municipal clinics and private hospitals for sexually transmitted infections last year, a rise of 8 000 on the preceding year although much of this rise was likely to be from having private hospital statistics included for the first time.
The Harare City Health annual report for 2012-2013 indicates that STI cases rose by 22 percent from 37 123 in 2012 to 45 374 in 2013.
Health experts attribute this to reduced condom use on the back enhanced access to ARV drugs.
City health director Dr Prosper Chonzi told The Herald that the figures were worrying given the huge investment stakeholders put into various intervention programmes to fight STI.
“The trend is definitely upward because people are no longer using protection. We have to bear in mind that these are new infections and it is disturbing as these are not repeated STI visits,” he said.
Recently, Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa warned that improved availability of anti-retroviral drugs and reduced condom use could derail gains made in the nation’s HIV responses.
Dr Chonzi warned the public to stop abusing drugs such as post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) to suppress HIV.
“PEP is …given at sub-therapeutic doses to suppress the virus and is not treatment. The drug will create resistance in a person’s system later when the actual dose is needed to suppress the virus,” he said.
Dr Chonzi said the rise in the number of STI cases could be due to early and increased reporting of cases at the city’s healthcare institutions.
“Improved data collection in private and public health systems and advanced medical interventions could also necessitate this high trend.
“In the past we could not get statistics from private hospitals and now we are getting them. This could partly explain the rise,” he said.
The report showed that women sought treatment for STI more than men.
In the period under review, a total of 28 842 women sought treatment while 16 532 male infections were recorded.
In 2010/11, 20 173 women sought treatment against 10 989 men.
Dr Chonzi said the high number recorded on women could be due to the fact that more women than men went to hospitals or clinics when they thought they were infected..
The most common STI in the city was urethral/vaginal discharge followed by pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), genital ulcers and ophthalmia neonatorum (eye infections in new-borns).
There were 16 532 new cases for men and 28 842 for women, while repeat visits were 2 331 for men and 3 926 for women.
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