Britain's Conservative Party says a major publicity effort -- like that mounted against AIDS in the 1980s -- is needed to reverse an epidemic of STDs. Party leaders promised, if victorious in the election expected to be called for May 5, to encourage youths to resist peer pressure to have sex. They denied, however, plans for a US-style abstinence campaign.

"It is no exaggeration to say that in Britain today we face a sexually transmitted diseases epidemic," said party leader Michael Howard. "Gonorrhea has doubled. Chlamydia has doubled. HIV has more than doubled. We have the worst rates of sexual health since records began." If elected, Conservatives will ensure that money for sexual services reaches the "front line," Howard said.

The Labor Party government, in its Public Health White Paper, promised to reduce STDs. At their 2003 conference, the Liberal Democrats supported mandatory sex education for children as young as seven to reduce teen pregnancy and STDs.

The Health Protection Agency last year announced that chlamydia cases were up by 9 percent. Almost 10 percent of UK adults have had an STD, and 13 percent have visited a genitourinary medicine clinic.

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