Sexually Transmitted Disease

The purpose of this work was to determine the frequency of diagnoses of depression, suicide attempts, Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), Human Immunodefficiency Virus (HIV) and pregnancy, in data collected from 2523 medical records of adolescents between the ages of 10 to 16 years old, and 17 to 25 years old, attended at University Hospital (University Hospital / State University of

Nonvenereal sclerosing lymphangitis is a rare penile lesion consisting of a minimally tender, indurated cord involving the coronal sulcus and occasionally adjacent distal penile skin. This disorder most often occurs after vigorous sexual activity and resolves spontaneously. However, as evidenced by 2 of the 3 cases reported, this condition also may be associated with underlying sexually transmitted disease that necessitates specific therapy.

Herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection is one of the most common viral sexually transmitted diseases worldwide. The first time infection of the mother may lead to severe illness in pregnancy and may be associated with virus transmission from mother to foetus/newborn. Since the incidence of this sexually transmitted infection continues to rise and because the greatest incidence of herpes simplex virus infections occur in women of reproductive age, the risk of maternal transmission of the virus to the foetus or neonate has become a major health concern. On these purposes the Authors of this review looked for the medical literature and pertinent publications to define the status of art regarding the epidemiology, the diagnosis, the therapy and the prevention of HSV in pregnant women and neonate. Special emphasis is placed upon the importance of genital herpes simplex virus infection in pregnancy and on the its prevention to avoid neonatal HSV infections.

Compared with both industrialized countries and other less developed parts of the world, most of sub-Saharan Africa suffers inordinately from sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). It has high prevalence rates of traditional STDs, such as gonorrhea and syphilis, and if accurate seroprevalence surveys were to be done, it would probably prove to have the highest HIV seropositive incidence in the world. Unlike the pattern in the West, AIDS is primarily a heterosexually transmitted disease in Africa. This appears to be largely because of the prevalence of other untreated or improperly treated STDs. Therefore to lower the incidence of STDs would be to curtail the spread of HIV infection. The problem becomes how exactly to accomplish this. Most STD cases are never even presented at biomedical health facilities; they are presented to traditional healers. Both healers and their patients seem to believe that traditional STD cures are more effective than 'modern' cures, although the fo...

La profilaxis pública de las enfermedades venéreo-sifilíticas en España La prostitución fue prohibida en España por Felipe IV, mediante pragmáticas de los años 1623 y 1661, estableciendo lo que se ha denominado un régimen prohibicionista para esta actividad. Obviamente, estas disposiciones y diversas medidas penales promulgadas durante los tres siglos siguientes no sirvieron para que la prostitución desapareciera, pero sí lo hicieron los prostíbulos legales y su ejercicio pasó a ser una actividad fundamentalmente callejera y fuente de gran escán-dalo social 1. En el siglo XIX las medidas sanitarias comienzan a dar fruto en el control de epidemias que cau-saban una enorme mortalidad (en el periodo 1860-1885 la esperanza de vida en España era 29 años) 2 y aumenta la preocupación por las enfermedades venéreas, situación que se incrementará a principios del siglo XX, cuando estas enfermedades sufren una gran expansión como consecuen-cia de la I Guerra Mundial. Aunque ya a finales del siglo XVIII comienzan a surgir propuestas a favor de una tolerancia y re-gulación de la prostitución, que incluiría una vigilancia sanitaria 3 , sólo a mediados del siglo XIX diversas ciudades y provincias españolas comienzan a aprobar normativas y a nombrar médicos para realizar un control sanitario de las prostitutas y de los prostíbulos. La oposición ciudadana, cambios políticos, insuficiencia presupuestaria y problemas organizativos de diversa índole hicieron que los intentos estatales, provinciales y locales para establecer un control higiénico de la prostitución entre 1845 y 1918 no llegaran a ejecutarse o tuvieran una mínima eficacia 1. En este último año, las continuas quejas, especialmente las procedentes de las autori-dades militares, por el aumento de las enfermedades venéreas y la falta de éxito de las medidas para combatirlas, motivan un nuevo intento gubernativo para intentar atajar el problema, mediante una Real Orden, disponiendo que se aprueben y publiquen las Bases para la reglamentación de la profilaxis pública de las enfermedades venéreo-sifilíticas, redactadas por la Inspección General de Sanidad y siendo Ministro de la Gobernación José Bahamonde y de Lanz 4. Se establecía así un régimen o sistema reglamentarista de la prostitución. La época en que se aprobaron estas Bases, conocida como Crisis de la Restauración, se caracteri-zó en España por una intensa agitación política y social, que conllevó grandes dificultades para su puesta en marcha. Además, importantes movimientos internacionales, apoyados por numerosos especialistas y políticos en España, fueron decantándose por la abolición de la prostitución y, con-secuentemente, la desaparición de medidas represivas o de control obligatorio sobre las prostitutas (régimen abolicionista), creándose una continua tensión y alternativas entre las medidas de tipo reglamentarista y abolicionista 1,5-7 .

Religious constraints on sexuality may have consequences for the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases. Recognising that several Islamic tenets may have the effect, if followed, of reducing the sexual transmission of HIV, this paper tests the hypothesis that Muslims have lower HIV prevalence than non-Muslims. Among 38 sub-Saharan African countries, the percentage of Muslims within countries negatively predicted HIV prevalence. A survey of published journal articles containing data on HIV prevalence and religious affiliation showed that six of seven such studies indicated a negative relationship between HIV prevalence and being Muslim. Additional studies on the relationship of risk factors to HIV prevalence gave mixed evidence with respect to following Islamic sexual codes (e.g., vs. extramarital affairs) and other factors, but that benefits arising from circumcision may help account for lower HIV prevalence among Muslims.

This study examined the relationship between HIV/AIDS risk perception and protective behaviour among sexually-active urban young slum dwellers in Ibadan, Nigeria. The multistage sampling tech- niques were used for selecting 1,600 respondents aged 15-24 years. Of these, 1,042 (65%) respond- ents who reported unprotected sex in the last three months were selected for analysis. Although the sexually-active respondents demonstrated basic