HPA: Awareness of risks must be raised

Safer sex awareness and the importance of taking a responsible attitude to sex must be impressed on young people, the head of the STI section of the Health Protection Agency (HPA) told inthenews.co.uk.

Dr Gwenda Hughes said it is important to educate children early on, as long as what is said is targeted to the group being spoken to.

"It's not about the mechanics of sex that we're talking about; it's about relationships and trying to educate people about relationships in general," she commented.

"You might want to have a combination of teachers and bringing in experts. You might even want to bring in peers for certain groups so that they can learn from their peers about safer sex and relationships."

Dr Hughes said awareness is vital as "if you don't know what the risks are then obviously you don't know you're taking risks".

"But in addition people need to take some form of responsibility for their own sexual health as they do with any aspect of their health," she added.

"You need to consider when you've taken risks what the consequences of that might be and really reconsider whether you should be reducing your partner's health and what you certainly need to be thinking about is always using a condom with new partners."