Indigenous communities record high rate of sex disease

A Western Australian Health Department official says she is shocked at the number of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in WA’s Indigenous communities.

A Western Australian Health Department official says she is shocked at the number of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in WA’s Indigenous communities.A departmental report suggests Aborigines in the Goldfields, Pilbara and Kimberley account for about 80 per cent of STIs in each region.Aborigines in the Goldfields make up 10 per cent of the region’s population.The director of communicable diseases, Dr Shirley Bowen, says the problem stems from a lack of access to contraceptives and information on safe sex.However, she says the high numbers could be due to better screening facilities.”Better testing is available, so we’re actually testing people which have never been tested for an STI in the past and that’s because they’ve lived in regional lands with poor access to medical care, so we’re finding them for the first time,” she said.(Source: ABC Health News, March 2004)