With all the current worries about the Corona Virus, we most not drop the ball on all the other sorts of infectious diseases around. For everybody in any sort on non-monogamous relationships, STIs/STDs must always be considered. Since the whole AIDS/HIV scare peaked, concern and safe-sex practice has dropped off a bit in some demographics, principally the 50 plus, mostly post-divorce. In particular there has been significant increase in gonorrhea in that age group.
Unlike viruses, STIs are bacterial and cannot be vaccinated against. So repeated infection is quite possible. Fortunately, STIs are (mostly) treatable with antibiotics, though some, such as gonorrhea are developing antibiotic resistant strains.
Unlike viruses, STIs are bacterial and cannot be vaccinated against. So repeated infection is quite possible. Fortunately, STIs are (mostly) treatable with antibiotics, though some, such as gonorrhea are developing antibiotic resistant strains.
Image from Avert.org
With any communicable disease, it's important to understand the Risk Network, of who has had contact with who (I blogged about this 8 years ago). In this case, who have your partners had sex with and who have your partner's partners had sex with, etc. It is the "six degrees of separation" scenario. The following diagram from the California Department of Health Services maps the sexual inter-relationship network at a college in Colorado Springs where an outbreak of gonorrhea occurred in the 1980s'.
The
majority of students only had 1 or 2 partners, but there are about 5 individuals who were highly sexually active with 2 having 20 or more partners. Most students were only 2 or 3 couplings away from these focii of
infection.
In this corona virus pandemic, the key procedures are early detection with wide testing (especially at point of entry to a country), then contact tracing, both backwards to find out who you got it from, and forward to identify your Risk Network of who you might have passed it on to.
Epidemiologists talk about the Reproduction Number, or R Factor. This a statistical average of the number of people an infected person will transmit the infection to. For Corona Virus, this is around 2.6. But being an average means that for some people there is no transmission (they identified in time and quarantined). At the other extreme, in Australia, one infected guest (an overseas family visitor) at a wedding reception, infected 39 other guests.
From the above cases, you can see why communicable diseases tend to break out in clusters, a school, a party, a nursing home, even swingers clubs.
So have fun, but play safe. If it's not on, it's not on.
In this corona virus pandemic, the key procedures are early detection with wide testing (especially at point of entry to a country), then contact tracing, both backwards to find out who you got it from, and forward to identify your Risk Network of who you might have passed it on to.
Epidemiologists talk about the Reproduction Number, or R Factor. This a statistical average of the number of people an infected person will transmit the infection to. For Corona Virus, this is around 2.6. But being an average means that for some people there is no transmission (they identified in time and quarantined). At the other extreme, in Australia, one infected guest (an overseas family visitor) at a wedding reception, infected 39 other guests.
From the above cases, you can see why communicable diseases tend to break out in clusters, a school, a party, a nursing home, even swingers clubs.
So have fun, but play safe. If it's not on, it's not on.
Click to see who else is taking the challenge.
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