According to the Health Protection Agency, there are certain demographics of the population that are at the highest risk of developing sexually transmitted diseases – men aged between 20 and 23 and women aged 19.

sexually transmitted diseasesAn increase of 3% in the rate of STDs over the previous year was noted in the UK alone, and according to experts young people were increasingly engaging is unsafe or risky sex.

The message of safe sex is required to be sent across and more efforts are required to this end. It is a startling statistic that 10% of teens, between the ages 16 and 19 receive treatment for STDs.

One of the reasons for the rise in STD cases is the fact that now more accurate testing is available and more cases are coming to light whereas earlier this wouldn’t be the case.

In particular it was young women who were seen to be vulnerable to STD infections. Young women, who are under confident about their ability and lack the skills to negotiate safe sex, are the group found to be engaging in unsafe sex. It is this that puts their own and other’s health (because of the risk of re-infection) at risk.