Mon 30 Jun 2014 In: New Zealand Daily News View at Wayback View at NDHA
File Photo A gay and bi men’s sexual health researcher says men who have sex with men remain invisible in STI statistics. New Zealand’s high chlamydia rates and a decline in genital warts were highlighted in a recent report on trends in sexually transmitted infections by the Institute of Environmental Science and Research Ltd. It does not report findings for gay and bisexual men, despite this group being at elevated risk of several STIs. “This is a comprehensive report and there’s been welcome progress on syphilis surveillance,” says Dr Peter Saxton of the Gay Men’s Sexual Health research group at the University of Auckland. However, he says until information on sex of partners is routinely collected, centralised and reported for STIs “we’re essentially flying with our eyes closed and can’t reliably identify trends. Peer-based organisations like NZAF are capable of responding rapidly to outbreaks, can alert the community and encourage targeted responses, but non-provision of these data delays public health action.” Dr Saxton says enhanced surveillance of HIV and now syphilis can identify new cases among men who have sex with men and have led to timely and effective responses. However he says this is still not true for anogenital warts, gonorrhoea and chlamydia. “The practical effect is that we can’t easily know whether gay and bisexual men are faring worse or better,” Dr Saxton says. “For example, there’s been a decline in genital warts among young men following the Gardasil vaccine programme from 2008 for young women. That undoubtedly masks differences by sexuality and is unlikely to be the reality for young gay men who don’t have sexual contact with young women.” Dr Saxton says on the flipside, the number of anorectal gonorrhoeal infections diagnosed in men at sexual health clinics more than doubled between 2009 and 2013, and the number of pharyngeal infections in the same group more than tripled. “If this is due to improved screening and diagnostic practices for gay and bisexual men rather than an outbreak then that response ought to be acknowledged and encouraged.” Dr Saxton says the ESR report acknowledges these limitations and notes that it is discussing ways to improve reporting of sex of partner with sexual health clinics. In February this year, the Gay Men’s Sexual Health research group at the University of Auckland in collaboration with NZAF and the University of Otago asked questions about disclosure of sexuality to GPs, willingness to provide sexual orientation information for health records, and anatomical site of STI screening as part of the 3-yearly GAPSS and GOSS studies. They are preparing funding requests to analyse these findings.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Monday, 30th June 2014 - 9:07am