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Spain launches safe sex campaign as STD rates soar among millennials

Spain will launch a campaign to urge young people to "always carry a condom on them" as the number of sexually transmitted infections (STI) surges, the government said Thursday.

Spain launches safe sex campaign as STD rates soar among millennials
Photo: ginasanders/Depositphotos

The news comes a week after the World Health Organization expressed alarm at the lack of progress on curbing STI or diseases (STD), with one expert warning of complacency as dating apps spur sexual activity.

In Spain, videos and ads will be posted from Monday on social networks, music platforms and media that 14- to 29-year-olds most follow, the health ministry said.

“It's normal that you want to do it in your parents' bed. What isn't normal is that you want to complicate your life,” reads one ad, going on to show the number of new cases of HIV and other infections.

In a statement, the health ministry urged “everyone — and particularly the young — to always have a condom on them and use it.”   

“The use of condoms has dropped among the 15- to 18-year-olds over the last few years,” Health Minister Maria Luisa Carcedo told reporters.   

She said there was complacency over STI, including infection by the HIV virus that causes AIDS.

The campaign is a “first shock measure” to challenge the rise of STI among young people, the statement said.   

The number of cases of gonorrhoea, for instance, has risen an average of more than 26 percent annually between 2013 and 2017, according to the ministry.   

Syphilis “has risen less but in 2017, it reached its highest peak since the start of statistics in Spain: 10.61 infections per 100,000 residents compared to 2.57 in 1995.”

The highest rates of chlamydia, meanwhile, are among 20- to 24-year-olds and particularly women, the ministry said.   

In 2017, Spain registered close to 24,000 cases of infection by gonorrhoea, syphilis, chlamydia and LGV, a sexually-transmitted disease, according to the statement.

READ MORE:  Seven of the best cheesy chat up lines in Spanish

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HEALTH

When can doctors in Denmark refuse to continue treating patients?

General Practitioners in Denmark have the right to break off a patient-doctor relationship in specific circumstances.

When can doctors in Denmark refuse to continue treating patients?

Although doctors in Denmark have the right to decide not to continue treating a patient – requiring them to find a new GP – the circumstances in which this can happen are limited, and must be approved by health authorities.

The frequency in which the circumstances arise is also low. A doctor decided to no longer receive a patient on 375 occasions in 2016, according to the medical professionals’ journal Ugeskrift for Læger. The following year, newspaper Jyllands-Posten reported the figure at 458.

There are two main categories of circumstances in which a doctor can choose to take this step. The first is in instances of violent or threatening behaviour from the patient towards the doctor. 

The second (and most common) is when the doctor considers the relationship to have deteriorated to the extent that confidence has broken down, according to Ugeskrift for Læger.

It should be noted that patients are not bound by any restrictions in this regard, and can decide to change their GP without having to give any justification.

A patient also has the right to appeal against a doctor’s decision to ask them to find a new GP. This is done by appealing to the local health authority, called a Region in the Danish health system.

In such cases, a board at the regional health authority will assess the claim and if it finds in favour of the patient may order the doctor to attempt to repair the relationship.

Doctors cannot end a relationship with a patient purely because a patient has made a complaint about them to health authorities. This is because patients should have the option of making complaints without fear of consequences for their future treatment. 

However, if this is accompanied by the conclusion on the doctor’s part that there is no longer confidence in them on the part of the patient, they can remove the patient from their list.

The right to no longer see patients in the circumstances detailed above is provided by doctors’ collective bargaining agreements, the working conditions agreed on between trade unions and employer confederations under the Danish labour market system.

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