Iceland has proportionally the highest rate of chlamydia in all of Europe.
“The situation in Iceland is terrifying,” Baldur Tumi Baldursson, head of the sexual health clinic at Landspítali told visir.is
He worries that girls might be infected without knowing it. “There’s a number of young women, up to 5% of women aged 18-25, who are chronically infected without knowing.”
So far this year, more chlamydia occurrences have been registered than at the same time last year. All in all, 1,893 incidents were registered in 2012.
“People laugh at this but it can lead to immense unhappiness later when these women have trouble conceiving,” Baldur adds. He says that young people often don’t realise how serious it can be to catch a sexually transmitted disease and blames authorities for not putting much effort into preventive campaigning against STDs.
The situation is not as bleak when it comes to other STDs, which usually have more obvious symptoms and can therefore be treated on earlier stages. Baldur says that although Iceland has the highest rate of chlamydia in Europe, it might also be partially explained by how good the health care registration directory is here.
According to a study carried out in 2004 and 2005, one in every five Icelandic women born after 1973 have been diagnosed with HPV. Laufey Tryggvadóttir, epidemiologist, who carried out the study says that young Icelanders’ sexual behaviour is becoming riskier and riskier.
“It goes without saying that the more people you have sex with, the more likely you’ll wind up with someone with STD,” Laufey told visir.is. In her study, she found that young Icelandic women have sex with more people than women of same age in the other Nordic countries.
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