Emails Wage War Against STD Exposure

In an attempt to cease the ever-increasing spread of sexually transmitted diseases, several public health agencies are notifying sex partners of those infected. And how are they doing this?….Via email.

The Internet has proven itself a breeding ground for people to meet, particularly through chat rooms. In effect, these strangers usually meet one another and take on not only friends, but anonymous sex partners, as well.

This email prevention program, initiated in Los Angeles County, essentially asks those infected to provide them with partner email addresses. Subsequently, they will alert them so that they, too, contact the health department and get themselves checked out.

“Using email has been a helpful and good alternative when you have otherwise anonymous sex partners,” stated Dr. Pragna Patel, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to the AP. “The Internet is serving as a place to meet sex partners and engage in risky behavior.”

Although a plausible effort, public health officials are having a hard time tracking down STD cases mainly because chat room participants use anonymous names and aliases.

In the US, the Health Department in San Francisco is the only other agency to use this email system. However, other officials do post prevention messages in gay and bisexual chat rooms and Web sites. They also contact sexual partners in person or through regular mail.

Reporting its first increase in new AIDS cases in ten years, LA County reported to the AP “that nearly a quarter of 759 gay and bisexual men who had syphilis had used the Internet to meet sex partners between 2001 and 2003.”

According to a recent case study, the email system is rather effective. Diagnosed in 2002 with syphilis, a male having 134 male sex partners in six months provided LA County with the email addresses of 111 partners. After the county alerted them, a quarter of them contacted health officials.

The Internet obviously has its bad side–allowing random people to meet and subsequently engage in sex. The new email alert system, however, is trying to rectify its effects. So far, it looks as if it’s doing a pretty good job.

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