Jennifer Zamparelli chats with sexual health specialist at St. James's Hospital and founder of Himerus Health STI Clinic, Dr. Aisling Loy. Listen back above.
Speaking on the recent headlines surrounding rising figures of HIV, Jen asked Dr. Loy to break down the data.
"The actual rates of infection, of new infections within Ireland, are actually down," reassures Dr. Loy, explaining that the rise in figures includes people who have moved here to work or study, but have already been diagnosed.
"Whenever you're on treatment, you can't infect new people," she reminds listeners. "U=U. Undetectable means untransmissible."
Essentially, people with HIV who achieve and maintain an undetectable viral load—the amount of HIV in the blood— cannot sexually transmit the virus to others. This is largely down to the use of PrEP (Pre-exposure Prophylaxis), a medication that is taken to prevent HIV.
Unfortunately, STIs are not on a downward trajectory. The HPSC (Health Protection Surveillance Centre) provides weekly STI and HIV reports, revealing how many diagnoses have been reported in the past week.
"In the month of January this year, compared to the month of January last year, I was just looking at it, and we're up 350 percent with gonorrhea, 120-something percent with chlamydia, I think it's 240 percent increase in genital herpes."
The silver lining, says Dr. Loy, is that STI at-home testing is much more readily available in Ireland thanks to SH:24, a service integrated with HSE public STI services.
Free home testing is available in every county, and anyone who is aged 17 or over can order a test to their home or to any other valid postal address in Ireland. You can find more info on SH:24.
"It's really getting to the people who were too embarrassed, were too far from a clinic, couldn't afford it, couldn't take a day off work. So, all of those people have now had the world of STI testing opened up to them."
These results indicate that "a lot of people" have had STIs without realising it, proving that many of these infections are asymptomatic and undetectable without testing. This, along with low condom use and a rise in casual hook-up culture has led to an astounding rise in cases.
Although home testing is a great initiative, Dr. Loy explains that it's mostly for people who don't have symptoms. If you do have any symptoms, you should go straight to your GP or visit a clinic.
"Don't be embarrassed because there's absolutely nothing we won't have seen or heard before," she insists.
Although condoms are "the best protection" when it comes to STIs, Dr. Loy reminds listeners that they don't protect against everything.
When it comes to oral sex, she says that "a lot of people" fail to use condoms but that a number of STIs can be spread that way including syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, and hepatitis.
For the most part, syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia are curable but if they go unchecked they can begin to cause long-term damage, so testing is essential. For hepatitis, Dr. Loy recommends getting vaccinated.
It is worth noting that genital herpes (HSV-1), a life-long infection, can also be spread through oral sex.
Dr. Loy told Jennifer that genital herpes often causes "a huge amount of distress", especially in young women, but that, for the most part in Ireland, it tends to be HSV-1 rather than HSV-2.
"The large majority of people in Ireland actually carry Herpes type 1," she explains. "Eighty to ninety percent of us have it, be it on the mouth or on the genitals. It doesn't really matter which, I always say to people both are used during sex."
To listen back to the full interview on The Jennifer Zamparelli Show, listen back above.
