SEXUALLY transmitted disease is rampaging through the teenage population, according to figures from the Health Protection Agency.

Statistics given in a parliamentary answer by Melanie Johnson, Public Health Minister, show that gonorrhoea more than tripled in boys aged 13 to 19 between 1995 and 2002 and revealed almost as rapid an increase in girls of the same age.

Chlamydia also showed a big increase: from 58.6 per 100,000 teenage boys in 1995 to 234.1 in 2002 and from 257.7 to 759.7 per 100,000 girls.

There were slower rises for genital herpes and genital warts, but syphilis — while still very rare in teenagers — showed the steepest rise of all.

There were only three cases in boys in 1995 but diagnoses rose to 27 by 2002, while in girls the increase was from two cases in 1995 to 19 in 2002.

The figures came in response to Sir Nicholas Winterton MP and others, who asked a series of identical questions.

The Health Protection Agency has previously reported sharp increases in sexually-transmitted infections across all age groups — cases doubled from 669,291 to 1,332,910 between 1991 and 2001 — but the MPs wanted to identify the trend in teenagers.

Opponents of the Government’s approach to sex education say that it has done little but fuel a rise in sexual infections, with little effect on teenage pregnancies. But the Department of Health insists that its health campaigns are working and teenagers are being kept fully informed of how to avoid disease.

The rise in chlamydia is of particular concern, according to the agency, because if untreated it can lead to infertility in women. The highest rates of chlamydia are among 16 to 19 year-old girls.

The true figure is expected to be far higher because most chlamydia cases show no symptoms. Some experts fear that one in four teenage girls may have the disease.

Four times as many boys were diagnosed with chlamydia in 2002 than in 1995. The condition can also cause male fertility problems.

The campaign group Right to Life is lobbying ministers, claiming that promoting “safe sex” leads young people into having more relationships and casual encounters. Its director, Phyllis Bowman, said yesterday: “Young people are not experimental fodder for family planning agencies or the Government. Teenagers are as romantic and idealistic as they ever were.

“They would be less likely to rush headlong into affairs that mean nothing if they didn’t have the safe-sex message forced on them persistently.”

But other pressure groups complained that there must be a greater emphasis placed on warnings about sexual diseases. The fpa, formerly the Family Planning Association, said yesterday: “Research has shown that the more information a young person receives, the more likely they are to delay sexual activity.”

They added that government strategy had resulted in a 9.4 per cent fall in teenage pregnancies in the past six years.

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