Condom no use against HPV

Many young people are accustomed to hearing “if you must have sex, use a condom” by elders and persons of various health organisations, but according to Gail Dignam, coordinator of the Governor’s Programme on Abstinence (GPA) in Louisiana, USA, “While we may have been promoting safe sex with a condom, we have at the same time been slowly killing our children” by exposing them to unknown Sexually Transmit-ted Diseases (STDs). Speaking at a Sexual Abstinence Workshop for principals at Amphitheatre B at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EWMSC) yesterday, Dignam said Human Papil-lomavirus (HPV), a common STD which was only discovered ten years ago, was by far the biggest contributor to cervical cancer in the world.

She revealed that 99.7 percent of all cervical cancer worldwide was caused by HPV —  an STD that researchers are still finding out about. Saying that condoms are useless against HPV, Dignam explained HPV was passed from person to person with any skin-to-skin contact with any HPV infected areas of the body. According to the American Cancer Society, “No scientific data supports condom use for genital HPV prevention.” While there is a higher prevalence of STDs among teens than adults, Dignam said two-thirds of cases occurred in persons between the ages of 15-24, and about a quarter of all new STD cases occur in teens 15-19 years old.

HPV is a viral disease for which there is no cure, claimed Dignam. Principals at yesterday’s workshop were those who volunteered to have an abstinence workshop incorporated into their respective school’s curriculum, which will form part of the Ministry of Education’s aim to introduce sex education into secondary schools. Delivering remarks on behalf of the Education Ministry, school supervisor Anthony Dalrymple said the Ministry’s focus at present was on secondary schools, as society was experiencing a serious problem with sexual behaviour among teens. Dalrymple revealed the Min-istry’s initiative included introducing both principals and teachers to the programme, in addition to providing the participants with all the necessary material.