The first vice president of the Spanish Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (AEDV), Dr. Isabel Belinchón, has conveyed the “high concern” of dermatologists regarding the increase in sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and has assured that, currently, ” there is a real alert.”
In fact, according to data provided by the Carlos III Health Institute last January, gonorrhea has multiplied by 25, syphilis by 10 and chlamydia has increased by 245 percent since 2016.
This is how the expert spoke at the presentation of the 51st National Congress of the Spanish Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (AEDV), which is being held between this Wednesday and this Sunday at the Ifema Municipal Congress Palace, and where more meetings will be held. of 2,200 specialists.
“We have to be able to convey to society that we must continue to protect ourselves. For example, there are mechanisms, such as PrEP, that do not protect against other STIs,” he said, highlighting that practices such as ‘chemsex’, which involves “very free” sex, without protection, together with the consumption of narcotics, is contributing to the increase in these figures to “alarming” levels.
“THE FEAR OF STIS HAS BEEN LOST BECAUSE THE FEAR OF AIDS HAS BEEN LOST”
In this sense, the president of the AEDV, Yolanda Gilaberte, has stated that “the fear of STIs has been lost because the fear of AIDS has been lost.” Although she has recognized that it is a problem “for all ages,” she has warned of the increase in young people visiting her offices for this reason.
For this reason, he has urged the use of condoms: “We have to work on education from children and adolescents, because sex is currently maintained at an early age. The condom is the only thing that can help control this,” he reiterated.
As the president of dermatologists has warned, STIs can leave consequences such as infertility, especially in chlamydia infections, gonorrhea and, in women, another consequence is pelvic inflammatory disease. In the case of the transmission of human papillomavirus (HPV), as is known, it can cause cervical cancer in women. In the case of men, although it is less common, one consequence is squamous cell carcinoma of the penis.
“Therefore, there are many risks that go beyond HIV, such as cancer, infertility and health problems that you will carry throughout your life,” the dermatologist concluded.
PEAK OF MANGE
On the other hand, Gilaberte has also acknowledged his concern about scabies, which “continues to be very common in consultations.” “We don’t know very well what happened, because this exponential growth was from the Covid confinement,” she said, ensuring that there is “still” a peak in scabies.
Since then, “much more recalcitrant” scabies have been seen in families and, in fact, they are sometimes resistant to the first topical treatment, permethrin.
The dermatologist has also highlighted that it is a disease that is “difficult to eradicate” in a family unit because the parasites can remain “in clothes or on sofas.” “If all the treatment is not done correctly, the entire family and all the belongings we have in the house will become reinfected. So, for some families it is a real nightmare,” she lamented.
For his part, Belinchón has recognized that the peak “is getting out of hand” because, when it is diagnosed, not all the information that would be needed to be able to stop it is given: treating the index case, its environment and everything that surrounds it. .
THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON THE SKIN
During the Congress, the impact of climate change on the skin will also be discussed, although figures on the matter are not yet available. One of the hypotheses that dermatologists are considering, according to the president of the AEDV, is that, if there is really an increase in temperatures, the population will have more days of exposure to the outside, which may result in an increase in the incidence of skin cancer.
On the other hand, the effect of pollution on diseases such as atopic dermatitis will also be studied, a pathology in which allergens that reach the skin trigger outbreaks. Likewise, there will be debate about whether ingested microplastics can accumulate in the fat of the skin. “All of these are hypotheses that will have to be studied if we really want to anticipate the consequences that all of this may have,” Gilaberte concluded.
