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Made in Chelsea star promotes sexual health

Latest figures from PHE spark need for new campaign

Public Health England have launched a new celebrity campaign encouraging young people to wear condoms during sex. It follows news that a new case of chlamydia and gonorrhoea was diagnosed every four minutes in the UK during 2017.

The new campaign, titled “Protect Against STIs”, is made up of two short films featuring Made In Chelsea star Sam Thompson. According to a PHE press release, the star can be seen talking about sexual health with young people and discussing their attitudes to using a condom.

It also features TV doctors Dr Sara Kayat and Dr Joe Peterson Camp.

Speaking about the campaign, Sam Thompson said: “I’m on a mission to encourage young people across the country to use condoms, with the help of Dr Sara and Dr Joe. We’re not talking about safe sex or normalising the use of condoms enough, and finding out all the facts about STIs has taught me so much, which I want to let everyone know about too, so we can limit the spread of STIs.”

Shocking figures amongst young people

Latest figures show that there were 400,000 sexually transmitted infections diagnosed during 2017, with 144,000 of those occurring in young people between the ages of 15 and 24.

Chlamydia and gonorrhoea pose the biggest threat to young people, with 63% of chlamydia diagnoses and 37% of gonorrhoea diagnoses occurring in the 15-24 bracket.

The short films also press home the fact that many sexually transmitted infections are symptomless for most people. This means that they can go undiagnosed for long periods of time which means they are more likely to cause lasting damage.

Dr Rashid Bani from Your Sexual Health believes that public funding and support for local sexual health services is important to ensure that young people have easy access to free protection and STI testing.

He said: “New campaigns encouraging young people to discuss sexual health are obviously excellent, but more needs to be done on a facilities level to protect young people.

“Sexual health testing is becoming more inaccessible to young people and long waits at clinics make people too embarrassed to attend for fear that they might see someone they know.”

Your Sexual Health offer a private alternative to testing which enables clients to purchase their tests online and book an appointment at a private clinic. You can find out more about our private sexual health tests across our site.