Prevention of STDs and Cure
STDs can present serious consequences for infected persons and this is the reason why prevention of STDs is quite paramount. Consequences may involve sterility, meningitis, endocarditis, blindness, and articular ankylosis. In the case of gonorrhea, there are worse consequences.
Sexually transmitted diseases involve all infections which can be transmitted through genital contact.
However, as in the cases of hepatitis, mononucleosis, scabies or pityriasis, it may be transmitted in other ways which has nothing to do with genital contact.
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STDs have continue to grow at alarming rates as each year presents over 250 million new cases of gonorrhea and over 50 million cases of syphilis are reported. For this, prevention of STDs is of utmost importance.
Factors involved in the increase of STDs
In encyclopedia of health and education for the family, professors Piédrola Angulo and Rey Calero mentioned that the factors which facilitate STDs to increase are:
- Increase in sexual promiscuity
- Ignorance among people of different levels
- Lower ages at which people seem sexually active
- High levels of mobility among population.
Other risk factors include:
- Injecting drugs which involves sharing of needle spreads many infections such as hepatitis B and hepatitis C and HIV.
- Recreational drug use or substance misuse
- Forcing an individual to engage in sexual activity
Sometimes, infections may be transmitted in a different form other than s*x such as infections transmitted from mothers to their infants during childbirth, pregnancy or through blood transfusion.
Symptoms of STDs or STIs
Sexually transmitted diseases have different kinds of symptoms and some that do not show any symptoms. The following symptoms may occur:
- Pain during sex
- Vaginal bleeding that seems unusual
- Bumps or sores on the genitals
- Painful urination
- Discharge from penis
- Fever
- Lower abdominal pain
- Rash over hands or feet
- Sore
Causes of STDs
- Viruses e.g HPV, HIV and genital herpes
- Parasites
- Bacteria e.g
Prevention of STDs
In order to prevent STDs, it is noteworthy that antibiotics are not enough. People have come to believe that with the discovery of antibiotics and their use, that at a period of time, STDs would disappear or decrease. However, over the decades the rates or incidence have gone up.
There’s been emergence of new diseases and resistance to antibiotics occurs quite often. The number of STDs continues to rise. There are bacterial infections such as Chlamydia trachomatis and pathological viral agents such as Hepatitis B virus, herpes simplex virus types I and II, and HIV
Ways to prevent STDs
- Abstain from sex
- Stay only with one person who is uninfected
- Wait and test: one has to avoid vaginal or anal intercourse with new partners until both partners involved have been tested for STIs
- Get vaccinated. There are vaccines to prevent HPV (human papillomavirus), hepatitis A and hepatitis B
- Use dental dams and condoms accurately and quite consistently
- Don’t do drugs or drink alcohol excessively
Consider the use of preexposure prophylaxis (prEP)
STD Viruses
Cures for STD viruses is not great at all and as it is, there are no effective means for fighting them such as in the case of AIDS. And again, there are agents such as genital herpes which can cause cervical cancer in women.
Prevention Rather than Cure
It is better to prevent an ailment than to try to cure it immediately it has taken place. Take for instance in the cases of all STDs and in particular cases of AIDS and genital herpes.
In essence, treating STDs must take the following:
- Try adopt some methods of prevention of STDs through health education
- Seek appropriate diagnosis and treatment
When we talk of prevention of STDs, educating the population in heath sexual related matters is the basic. It is important to educate individuals suffering from STDs in order to encourage them to handle their disease responsibly and do not pass it to other people.
Health ministries and authorities must take the responsibility for educating the masses about health and cleanliness in general.
There are other methods of prevention of STDs which will go a long way in combating the spread. For example, when STD is discovered, the persons that got infected should reveal all sexual partners, so they can get treatment.
Another means is to have a serological examination among high risk groups.
It is clearly true and obvious that the only real method of prevention of STDs is to let the people and society at large to know the fact that uncontrolled and unprotected s*x is dangerous.
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A graduate of Computer Science and Information Management Technology. Diploma – Caregiving, Certificates – Dementia and Diabetes Awareness and Management. A researcher, blogger, songwriter, singer and acoustic guitarist. Born in an environment where natural talents such as healing are imparted at our natural birth. This natural talents of healing is the result of our genetic inheritance and the training from family environment.