Sexually Transmitted Infections: Disease Control

(asked on 17th March 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Government’s sexual health strategy will set aspirations to (a) reduce the R- rate of and (b) set reduction rate plans for (i) chlamydia, (ii) gonorrhoea and (iii) syphilis.


Answered by
Maria Caulfield Portrait
Maria Caulfield
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
This question was answered on 23rd March 2022

We are developing a new Sexual and Reproductive Health Strategy for England, which will be published later this year. The Strategy will set out our plans to improve sexual and reproductive health outcomes and wellbeing, including tackling sexually transmitted infections (STIs). As part of the Strategy’s development process, we are currently considering the control of STIs. The reproduction or ‘R’ numbers for various STIs will not be included in the Strategy, as the R number for a typical STI differs from many other infections and cannot not easily measurable or generalised to the overall population. Factors include the population density of susceptible people, transmission probability per sexual partner and the number of sexual partners during a period of time, as well as the time spent in the infectious state.

Reticulating Splines