Which STDs are common amongst young people?

Young people (people under the age of 25, or those claiming to be!) have a high rate of testing positive for STIs and STDs in statistics published by the HPA.

These figures only relate to those people under the age of 25 in the UK in 2010 who tested positive for one or more STIs or STDs:

• 63% of the positive tests were for chlamydia
• 54% of the positive tests were for genital warts
• 47% ofthe positive tests were for gonorrhoea
• 41% of the positive tests were for genital herpes (Herpes type II, HSVII)

Women are most likely to get an STI at the ages of 19 (Chlamydia, genital warts and gonorrhoea) and 20 (herpes), and for men it is slightly later at the age of 21 (chlamydia and genital warts), 22 (gonorrhoea) and 23 (herpes).