Sexual Health | Public health | Transmission of STIs and HIV

Transmission of STIs and HIV
Session Overview
Description
This session is an introduction to the fundamental principles underlying the maintenance of sexually transmitted infections and HIV in the population.

Learning Objectives
By the end of this session you will be able to:

• Define the basic reproductive rate (R0) and the parameters contributing to it (contact number, duration of infectivity and transmissibility)
• Identify likely values of parameters contributing to R0 for major sexually transmitted infections in the UK setting and to use them to explain the differences between the epidemiology of major sexually transmitted infections and HIV
• Explain the impact of concurrency and of dissortative vs assortative mixing on transmission dynamics
• Identify interventions aimed at reducing transmission via each of the parameters contributing to R0

Prerequisites
Before commencing this session you should complete the session:

• Module 1/Sexual Behaviour and Infection Risk (260-0001)

As a clinical practitioner, you will have noticed how much difference there is in sexual behaviour between 'typical patients' with various sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

For example, patients in the UK with genital warts are much more like those with chlamydia (often fewer changes of sexual partner), than those with gonorrhoea and syphilis (frequent changes in partners, or multiple concurrent partners, or recent visitors to countries where these infections are more common). Whereas the typical patient with influenza or Campylobacter pylori does not really exist.