Time for action on chlamydia

doi:10.1136/bmj.39185.475255.3A

BMJ 2007;334:813 (21 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.39185.475255.3A

Letters

Chlamydia screening

Time for action on chlamydia

Chlamydia is an important sexually transmitted infection inyoung people. Rates have been rising steadily over the pastdecade. Treatment is available and easy to take without manyside effects. And young people are rightly worried about chlamydia.The complications, although perhaps not life threatening, canbe devastating in later life. Try to explain to a couple intheir 30s that they can't have children because of a previousundiagnosed chlamydia infection.

We can look for more and more evidence and do more and moreresearch, all costing a lot of money and delaying any diseasecontrol project for many more years. I have been involved inthe chlamydia screening project in Lambeth for nearly two years.Currently we are screening high numbers of young people, maleand female, and our detection rate for chlamydia is above 10%.Practices are paid a small incentive when they manage to screen10% of young people on their list. Many practices do so, andmany do even better. Articles such as the one written by Lowdo not help the cause: they only create confusion and feed scepticism.¹

We need optimism. Simple measures would increase the screeningtarget, and yes, it would be easy to change screening from beingopportunistic to proactive. Very simple; make it a quality andoutcomes framework. Change the specimen request forms, integraterequests for chlamydia screening with the usual generic pathologyforms. This would save a lot of hassle and increase the complianceof clinicians. Yes, chlamydia screening is expensive, but youngpeople are worth it.

Sebastian A Kalwij, GP-lead, Chlamydia Screening Project Lambeth

London SE1

sebastiankalwij{at}mac.com

Competing interests: None declared.