August 5, 2009

DC Offers STI Tests for All High School Students

Washington, DC, school officials have announced that all public high schools in the city will offer screenings for sexually transmitted infections (STI) in the coming school year, expanding a pilot program that revealed an increase in STI prevalence among young people, The Washington Post reports.

According to the program conducted last year at eight DC schools, 13 percent of about 3,000 students tested positive for an STI, with gonorrhea and chlamydia being the most prevalent. The new testing initiative will reach about 12,000 students.

Health officials and AIDS advocates hope the testing effort will help the city manage its worsening HIV rate, which is the highest in the country at about 3 percent. Half of the city’s chlamydia and gonorrhea cases are among adolescents. Both infections increase the risk of HIV transmission.

The program requires students to attend a lecture about STIs and allows them to opt out of a urine sample for the test. DC and all 50 states allow STI screenings for minors older than 12 without parental consent.

“The program tells us that a lot of students in the public school system are engaging in unsafe sex,” said Walter Smith, executive director of the DC Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, which advocates for AIDS education and outreach in schools. “If 13 percent of these students are testing positive for STDs, those same kids could get HIV. A lot needs to be done to get the message out to the schools…. And this very high STD rate is an indication that what we’ve been doing is not effective.”

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