Sometimes,
the way alternative medicine hawkers trivialise issues relating to
sexually-transmitted infections/diseases is astounding.
For
one, they dwell more on obscene description of sexuality; while they
also call STIs the diseases of the socially active persons.
Well,
whether this latter aspect is true or not, the undeniable fact is that
STDs are dangerous infections that can wreak systematic havoc on the
body, internally and externally; and, in extreme cases, they can result
in agonising death.
Epidemiologists
say there are more than 20 STDs, including crabs, scabies, genital
warts, syphilis, AIDS, Chlamydia, Herpes, among others.
Researchers
say every year, millions of STDs are passed from person to person,
primarily through sexual contact, though some infections are also
transmitted non-sexually.
They note
that because the infections are sexually-transmitted, people don’t like
to talk about them and therefore leave them untreated.
“Sometimes,
the infections will go away; but usually, an untreated STD will return
and the infected person will suffer grave consequences as a result,”
epidemiologist, Mr. Segilola Araoye, warns.
Doctors also warn that STDs are dangerous for a pregnant woman and her unborn baby.
Family
physician, Dr. Damilare Okikiolu, notes that a pregnant woman with an
STD can infect her baby before, during, or after delivery.
“She may also go into early labour or suffer early rupture of the membranes surrounding the baby in the uterus.”
Worse
still, doctors say, the complications of STIs in pregnant women can
result in cervical cancer and other cancers for the mother. As for the
unborn baby, he may suffer chronic hepatitis, neonatal sepsis
(infection in the blood), damage to the brain, blindness, deafness,
acute hepatitis, meningitis, and chronic liver disease.
Okikiolu
laments that some of the effects of birth-related sexually-transmitted
diseases may not be detected for months or sometimes, even years.
Physicians
warn that there are no vaccines for the prevention of some of these
STDs and that even after a patient must have been treated for any of
them, he or she could still get a new infection if they don’t adhere to
strict sexual health practices.
Okikiolu
advises sexually active people who have more than one partner or those
who engage in risky sexual behaviours to regularly screen for STIs.
While we may not be able to mention all the STDs in the books, a brief examination of some of them would do. So, here we go…
Chlamydia
Okikiolu
says typically, most people who have Chlamydia don’t know they do
because the bacterial infection often has no symptoms, though it’s one
of the most reported STDs.
He warns,
“Chlamydia is easy to cure, but if left untreated, it can affect a
woman’s ability to conceive; just as it can affect the genitals, rectum,
eyes and eyelids.
“Indeed, about
10-15 per cent of women with Chlamydia will develop pelvic inflammatory
disease, which affects the upper genital tract. This may cause permanent
damage to the fallopian tubes, uterus, and surrounding tissues, and can
lead to infertility. It may also lead to ectopic pregnancy. In men,
Chlamydia infection can spread to the testes, and can result in
sterility,” the doctor warns.
The
signs and symptoms of Chlamydia, Okikiolu says, usually include painful
urination, lower abdominal pain, vaginal discharge in women, discharge
from the penis in men, pain during sexual intercourse in women, and
testicular pain in men.”
He warns
that any sexually frivolous person can get Chlamydia, “but female teens
are more likely to be infected because of immature cervix.”
Trichomoniasis
This
STI, also called Trich, presents no symptom, physicians say; and is one
of the most common causes of vaginitis — an irritation of the vulva or
vagina. It takes between three and 28 days for symptoms to appear, if
ever they do. Consequently, victims — especially men — don’t know they
have it until they start having discharge from the urethra, or when they
feel the urge to urinate frequently — often with pain and burning.
Okikiolu
notes that when women have Trich symptoms, they may have frothy, often
unpleasant-smelling vaginal discharge, blood spotting in the discharge,
itching in and around the vagina, and swelling in the groin.
Syphilis
This
STD is one of the most versatile, as it presents in four stages
—primary, secondary, latent, and tertiary — when left untreated.
Okikiolu
explains that, “The primary stage classically presents with firm,
painless, non-itchy skin ulceration (chancre); secondary stage comes
with a diffuse rash which frequently involves the palms of the hands and
soles of the feet. Latent syphilis presents little or no symptoms, but
by the time it graduates to tertiary stage, you can have a soft,
non-cancerous growth (gummas, commonly found in the liver, brain, heart,
skin, bone, testis, and other tissues). These can lead to a variety of
potential problems, including neurological disorders or heart valve
disease.”
Signs and symptoms of
syphilis include a firm, round, small, and painless sore on the
genitals, anus, or mouth; or a rash on the body, especially on the palms
of the hands or the soles of the feet, researchers say.
Crabs
This
STD is also called pubic lice, which physicians describe as “small
parasites that feed on human blood and usually found on the pubic hair.”
They can also be found on other parts of the body where a person has
coarse hair, such as armpits, eyelashes, and facial hair. Crabs rarely
infest head hair, scientists say.
“The
most noticeable symptom of crabs is itching in the pubic area, which
usually starts about five days after infection,” Okikiolu says.
Doctors
warn that crabs are also transmitted non-sexually when one sleeps in an
infested bed or uses infested towel, wears infested cloth or uses an
infested toilet seat.
Herpes
While
all the aforementioned STDs are treatable, not so herpes. Doctors say
“there is no cure for this infection, though treatment can reduce
symptoms and decrease the risk of transmission to another person.”
Okikiolu
says herpes presents no symptoms or have very mild symptoms that go
unnoticed or are mistaken for another skin condition.
The
Centres for Disease Control and Prevention warns that when symptoms do
occur, they typically appear as one or more blisters on or around the
genitals, rectum or mouth. “The blisters break and leave painful sores
that may take two to four weeks to heal. The first time someone has an
outbreak, they may also experience flu-like symptoms such as fever, body
aches and swollen glands.”
As
deadly as herpes is, scientists say, the infection can remain in the
body indefinitely; and if a person with genital herpes touches his/her
sores, he may transfer the infection to another part of the body,
including the eyes.
Again,
physicians warn, “The genital sores caused by herpes can bleed easily.
When the sores come into contact with the mouth, vagina, or rectum
during sex, they increase the risk of HIV transmission if either partner
is HIV-infected.”
Genital HPV infection
Okikiolu
says there are more than 40 types of Human Papilloma Virus that not
only infect the male and female genitals, but can also infect the mouth
and throat. Also incurable, as HPV lingers in the body, it can cause
serious health problems such as genital warts and certain cancers,
physicians warn.
Experts say though
in about 90 per cent of the cases, HPV infections go away by themselves
within two years, sometimes, they may persist and cause a variety of
serious health problems such as genital warts, recurrent respiratory
papillomatosis — a rare condition in which warts grow in the throat;
cervical cancer, cancer of the vulva, vagina, penis, or anus; and a type
of head/neck cancer called oropharyngeal cancer (cancer in the back of
throat, including the base of the tongue and tonsils).
As
per reports, Blackface has said he has not been paid for co-writing
song ‘African Queen’ along with his fellow Tuface Idibia, who sang the
song.
1. Good sex
Ekiti
State Government says it has opened a black book, called the Sexual
Offenders Register, to compile a list of convicted sexual offenders in
the state.
You
are supposed to retire on June 22, yet you have approval from the
Minister of Information to travel to Ireland to represent the country on
July 22. Why is that the case?
Elderstateman
and former presidential aspirant, Dr. Lema Jibril has called for the
scrapping of the 36 states of the federation, including the 774 local
governments due to the cost of running government in the country.
The
Lagos State Coordinator of the National Youth Service Corps Scheme,
Mrs. Adenike Adeyemi, has said that the N500 levy being collected from
each corps member is not a means of extortion but their own
contribution to the NYSC Foundation.