South West Chlamydia Testing Team Beats National Average - Innovative Campaign Doubles Testing Rates In Six Months, UK

Main Category: Sexual Health / STDs
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology;  Public Health;  Medical Devices / Diagnostics
Article Date: 08 Jan 2009 - 6:00 PDT

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The Park Centre for Sexual Health at Weymouth Community Hospital is celebrating the success of its Chlamydia screening programme, which has screened more than 1,700 young people in the last five months alone, more than doubling its screen-rate and beating both local and national averages. Now, the campaign is being introduced to other Primary Care Trusts (PCT) across the country.

The campaign, branded 'Not for Virgins' and devised by Roche Diagnostics, was launched across Dorset in May 2008. Given the Government's targets set out in the National Chlamydia Screening Programme (NCSP), Not for Virgins was devised specifically to generate awareness of Chlamydia among 16-25 year olds and to encourage them to self-test confidentially.

In 2007, prior the launch of Not for Virgins, 2.4% of Dorset's 16-24 years olds were being screened for the infection. Now, with test rates at 5%, Dorset is ahead of the rest of the South West, where the average is 4.3%. The average in England is 3.8%.

Ravi Chana, market development manager at Roche Diagnostics said "We are delighted to see such encouraging results from the Not for Virgins campaign. We hope that more PCTs will be able to take advantage of this bespoke package designed to support the drive for Chlamydia testing amongst the under 25s."

The Not for Virgins campaign includes kits that allow the patient to take a sample (a swab for females and a urine sample for males) in their own home, and post anonymously to lab, where molecular screening is carried out.

Also as part of the Dorset campaign the team took a branded van on a four-day tour of the region, handing out kits and posters. A dedicated website was set up at www.chlamydiascreendorset.co.uk and achieves approximately 700 hits per month. 90% of kits requested from the website are returned for screening.

Barry Alborough, matron at the Park Centre for Sexual Health and initial organiser of the campaign, said: "While we still have some way to go to meet the national targets, we've already made a huge improvement in just half a year by more than doubling the number of young people screened.

"It can be a real challenge to raise awareness of STIs among young people, and it can be especially difficult in rural areas. Our improvement in levels of screening goes to show how effective a marketing campaign like Not for Virgins can be. It is highly targeted, aiming to make young people feel comfortable enough to carry out the test."

The Dorset PCT has now taken over the full running of the campaign, headed up by manager Sarah Mumford, and acting co-ordinator Val Latham. Together, the team hopes to continue the success to date and to continue working with partner agencies to provide a successful programme throughout Dorset County.

The Government has set a target for 17% of the UK's six million young adults to be screened for Chlamydia during 2008/9. Currently an average of four times more women are screened than men.

For further information on Not for Virgins, visit http://www.notforvirgins.co.uk/

About Chlamydia

- Approximately 146,000 young adults were screened in the forth year of the National Chlamydia Screening Programme in England.

- Although younger females are more likely to have Chlamydia infections, younger males are not exempt with a seven per cent rise in male diagnoses between 2004 and 2005

- The overall cost to the UK taxpayer of Chlamydia is estimated to be £100 million in each year.

About Not for Virgins

The Not for Virgins kits were developed by Roche Diagnostics division. Roche Diagnostics offers a uniquely broad product portfolio and supplies a wide array of innovative testing products and services to researchers, physicians, patients, hospitals and laboratories world-wide. For further information, please visit http://www.roche.com.

About Roche and the Roche Diagnostics Division

Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is one of the world's leading research-focused healthcare groups in the fields of pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. As the world's biggest biotech company and an innovator of products and services for the early detection, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases, the Group contributes on a broad range of fronts to improving people's health and quality of life. Roche is the world leader in in-vitro diagnostics and drugs for cancer and transplantation, and is a market leader in virology. It is also active in other major therapeutic areas such as autoimmune diseases, inflammatory and metabolic disorders and diseases of the central nervous system. In 2007 sales by the Pharmaceuticals Division totalled 36.8 billion Swiss francs, and the Diagnostics Division posted sales of 9.3 billion francs. Roche has R&D agreements and strategic alliances with numerous partners, including majority ownership interests in Genentech and Chugai, and invested over 8 billion Swiss francs in R&D in 2007. Worldwide, the Group employs about 80,000 people. Additional information is available on the Internet at http://www.roche.com.

All trademarks used or mentioned in this release are protected by law.

Roche's Diagnostics Division offers a uniquely broad product portfolio and supplies a wide array of innovative testing products and services to researchers, physicians, patients, hospitals and laboratories world-wide. For further information, please visit our website at http://www.roche.com.

Roche's Diagnostics Division