STI testing levels now higher than before the pandemic

Last year, the GGD health services performed 164,715 tests for sexually transmitted infections (STIs). That is 19 percent more than in 2021 and for the first time back to pre-pandemic levels. In 2019, the GGDs tested 150,782 people for STIs.

The number of STI consultations was low in 2020 and 2021 when health services scaled down regular care to focus on combating the coronavirus pandemic. But it now seems that people are returning to health services when they worry about contracting an infection during sex, the public health institute RIVM said on Friday.

The increase in STI consultations is partly due to the PrEP experiment launched last year for men who have sex with other men. Part of the experiment with the drug that helps prevent an HIV infection is to regularly get tested for STIs. But the GGDs also tested more women, heterosexual men, and others not part of the PrEP experiment for STIs last year.

The RIVM noted an increase in chlamydia, with 21.2 percent of heterosexual men and 17.9 percent of women who went to get tested testing positive for the STI. In 2019, before the pandemic, those percentages were 18.4 and 15.3, respectively. “Remarkably, the increase in 2022 was only visible among people under the age of 25,” the institute said.

There was also a sharp increase in gonorrhea. Last year, 10,600 people tested positive for the STI, a rise of 33 percent compared to 2021. Here, too, the increased diagnoses were most prevalent among young people.