United Kingdom: Tourists Bring Sex Diseases Back With Souvenirs

Increasingly, young people and sex tourists are returning from vacations abroad with HIV or other STDs, according to a new report by Dr. Karen Rogstad of the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield, England. "A large proportion of people are having sexual intercourse with new partners when they go abroad… and are putting themselves at risk of sexually transmitted infections," Rogstad said in the report, which reviewed STI research studies and global health Web sites that could be expected to provide travel-related information.

"Between 2000 and 2002, 69 percent of United Kingdom born men with heterosexually acquired HIV were infected through sex while abroad, as were a quarter of women. Of these men, 22 percent were probably infected in Thailand," noted Rogstad. In one study of heterosexual British men, 21 percent of syphilis infections were acquired abroad and 9 percent of gonorrhea patients had had sex in a foreign country in the past three months.

People under age 25 are particularly at high risk -- thanks in part to alcohol use and the "date rape" drug Rohypnol -- but tourists who go abroad specifically to have sex face the highest risk. A study of male German sex tourists in Thailand showed that just 30-40 percent used condoms, Rogstad said.

Few travel companies and only about 3 percent of travel brochures offer information on safe sex or the risks associated with sex abroad, noted Rogstad. Supplying this type of information could help lower STI infection rates for travelers. "Prevention advice should be offered to all people going on holiday but particularly those going to the developing world," she added.

The study, "Sex, Sun, Sea and STIs: Sexually Transmitted Infections Acquired on Holiday," was published in the British Medical Journal (2004;329(7459):214-217).

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