Sweden: Chlamydia Outbreaks Can Be Caught in the Net

A study at Umea University in Sweden shows that the Internet and the mail are useful in tracing chlamydia among young men. The study, run by research general practitioner Daniel Novak, his thesis director Roger Karlsson and Monica Jonsson at the Unit for General Medicine, covered all 22-year-old males in Umea, Sweden, during 2002. Researchers sent participants an information sheet, a questionnaire and a coded plastic capsule. Men who wanted to be tested submitted a urine sample in the coded capsule. The samples were tested for chlamydia and results entered into a database. Participants could go online to check their results on a Web page that contained detailed information about chlamydia and other STDs and urged those who tested positive to come in for free treatment. This method of obtaining results yielded a 39 percent response rate (396 of 1,016 interviewees), the highest published participation rate ever in a chlamydia screening of young men.

Four of the men tested positive. Three received their results via Internet and sought treatment on their own. Researchers contacted the fourth man, in accordance with the Act on Contagious Diseases, and found that he did not understand Swedish well enough to get his result.

The two most common reasons men did not want to participate in the study were that they did not believe they were infected (50 percent) and they were in a stable relationship (55 percent).

The full report, "The Internet, a Simple and Convenient Tool in Chlamydia trachomatis Screening of Young People," was published in Eurosurveillance (2003;8(9):171-176).

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