The work, awarded with €1500, evaluated the geographical distribution of three sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in Portugal – chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis – and identified the municipalities with the highest risk, using the data from the National Epidemiological Surveillance System (SINAVE), during the 2015-2017 period.
“We chose to evaluate these three conditions because, in addition to being the most commonly reported diseases in our country, they are all preventable and curable, so if detected early, complications in neonatal and reproductive health can be avoided”, explains Cláudia Santos.
The work concluded that the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto have the highest notification rates of these diseases. These same areas exhibit notification rates above the national average, representing areas of high risk for contraction of these STIs. “These are numbers much higher than the national average”, says the researcher. The Lisbon Metropolitan Area concentrates the majority of reported cases at the national level: 70% of chlamydia cases, 57% of gonorrhea cases and 47% of syphilis cases.
Regarding the typical patient profile of these pathologies, we noticed that these are mostly men, young and heterosexual.
For the researcher, “the results of the communication are useful to define the communities and groups that deserve priority interventions and to develop public health programs appropriate for these populations”.
It should be noted that between 2015 and 2017, the national notification rates were 2.4 per 100 000 inhabitants for chlamydia, 5.2 per 100 000 inhabitants for gonorrhea and 8.0 per 100 000 inhabitants for syphilis. The figures found in the paper show much higher notification rates in the Lisbon and Porto metropolitan areas (close to 68 per 100 000 inhabitants for chlamydia, over 171 per 100 000 inhabitants for gonorrhea and above 152 per 100 000 inhabitants for syphilis).
The communication presented is entitled Mapping geographical patterns and high-risk areas for sexually transmitted infections in Portugal – a retrospective study based in the National Epidemiological Surveillance and was coordinated by the ISPUP researchers, Ana Isabel Ribeiro (the supervisor) and Bernardo Gomes (co-supervisor).
