Strong increase in sexually transmitted infections: "It becomes totally catastrophic"

More and more French people do not think about "going out covered", an expression used in the fight against AIDS. As a result, badually transmitted infections, STIs, have risen sharply: for chlamydia, the number of people infected was increased from 10 to nearly 270 000 in four years. For gonorrhea, such as gonorrhea, diagnoses tripled between 2012 and 2016.

Jean-Marc Bohbot, infectious disease doctor and medical director of the Institut Fournier, spoke Sunday, July 22 on France Inter of a "Complete failure of our prevention campaigns" which "becomes totally catastrophic". According to the practitioner, prevention has focused a lot on AIDS, rightly, but at the expense of other infections that can have serious consequences, such as papillomavirus, which is responsible for certain cancers of the cervix. uterus, or chlamydia, which can result in infertility in women with late treatment.

Is it time to sound the alarm?

] Jean-Marc Bohbot: Unfortunately, we have been trying to sound the alarm for over twenty years. This becomes totally catastrophic, we realize that we are on a complete failure of our prevention campaigns. We do not hear them anymore, but it is especially that we have focused a lot on prevention with regard to AIDS, which is justified because it is a serious infection. Unfortunately, for other infections, the message can not be quite the same and we will have to completely adapt our message of prevention, if we want to lower these figures. In France, AIDS continues to kill, but a badually transmitted infection, such as papillomavirus, kills two to three times more women per year than AIDS. We have three women a day dying from cervical cancer because of the papillomavirus. There has been a lot of focus on HIV, now we have to adapt our prevention to STIs.

At the time of first badual intercourse, only 20% of high school students say they used a condom. In students, it's only 48% The condom has not got into the mores?

It's become commonplace, people know that you have to use a condom. The problem is that they use it in a very episodic way, that they do not use it for all the badual intercourse. Every day in consultation, I have patients come to me and say, "I protect my bad." But how come you have an STI? Do you protect blow jobs, for example? No. So, of course, you do not get AIDS by the blowjobs, but for all STIs, it's a risk. On the one hand there are very episodic uses of the condom and on the other hand, it is not targeted on all the reports at risk.

This explosion of STIs, is it because our behavior and badual practices have changed?

It can already be said that part of the increase is due to better screening. We are starting to set up screening centers everywhere. We detect more. Ineluctably, we also have risk behaviors that increase. This is not the accumulation of partners. In the 15-24 age group, which is the most exposed age group, I do not see that every day. There are no multi-partners, there are simply partners who change. It should be noted that the blood test is not sufficient to detect all STIs. This is valid for AIDS, for syphillis and hepatitis. For gonococci, chlamydia, mycoplasma badium, a new extremely dangerous microbe, as common as chlamydia [dont le traitement n’est toujours pas remboursé par la Sécurité sociale] there is no screening. In any case, it does not come spontaneously to young people's minds.