GU Clinic report exposes high rate of extramarital affairs

Nearly a third of married couples who visited the Genitourinary Clinic last year admitted to having an extramarital affair, according to a new report.

Casual sex was common among 21.5 per cent of married patients, while 9.2 per cent admitted having a mistress or a male lover - usually a long-standing one - apart from their spouse.

Among 1,983 new patients who visited the clinic last year were 325 married people. Preliminary figures for the first nine months of this year show a similar trend. The majority, 82.4 per cent, said they never used a condom.

GU Clinic head Philip Carabot said such behaviour was exposing the unsuspecting spouse to sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Going through the data of the past years, Dr Carabot said the pattern among the married group was that more men than women admitted to having casual sex or a second partner.

"This, of course, does not mean it is necessarily so. As a general rule, men tend to overestimate their 'conquests', while women understate them," he said.

The 2008 clinic report seen by The Sunday Times highlights a worrying trend of casual unprotected sex, with just 9.6 per cent of all 2,632 patients saying they consistently used a condom, and 71 per cent never having used one.

"The fact that the rate of casual sex remains high and condom use so low means whatever we are teaching is not working and we need to revise it," he said.

This news comes two weeks after the third and latest draft of the National Sexual Health Policy was withdrawn from the 2010 Budget, snuffing out the possibility it would see the light of day after 10 years in the making.

Dr Carabot was disappointed and prepared to throw in the towel after he took offence at Social Policy Minister John Dalli's accusations in The Times that Dr Carabot had a personal agenda.

However, Dr Carabot said the matter had now been "clarified after an amicable exchange of views".

A national policy would give the island direction on sexual health, and although Dr Carabot said it would not work miracles, it would at least lay the framework on the way forward.

"I am under no illusions. It will not resolve all the sexual health problems we face. Whatever is written may not be good enough and it has to be an evolving project. But it is important to have a direction," he added.

In 2008, 75 per cent of the 2,632 people who presented themselves at the clinic were new patients.

The report showed an inordinate amount of pathology in young adults aged 15 to 24 and all infections increased significantly. Nearly 31 per cent of this age group said they had anal sex occasionally, 42 per cent described their last partner as casual, and 64 per cent admitted to never using a condom.

"The combination of casual sex with very poor condom use is a dangerous combination, especially in the young who are more susceptible to the complications of untreated STIs. This same picture has been seen from year to year with no signs of improvement - this situation needs to be urgently addressed," Dr Carabot said.

The 2008 report and preliminary figures for 2009 unearthed a conundrum that is puzzling Dr Carabot - the incidence of chlamydia, a sexually transmitted infection, yo-yoed drastically in a matter of a year.

In 2008, 116 cases were diagnosed - an increase of 39 per cent over the previous year - but this figure dropped to 45 in the first 10 months of this year.

"It doesn't make sense. The prevalence of a disease in a population does not change so dramatically from year to year. The matter needs investigating with our pathology colleagues. We don't want to give the population a false sense of security," he said.

Chlamydia, known as the silent disease because it often has no symptoms, can lead to infertility if left untreated.

This fluctuation was even more baffling when the cases of other genital infections - non-specific urethritis (a common sexually transmitted disease among men) and mucopurulent cervicitis (an inflammation of the cervix usually resulting from STDs) - remained consistent and the clinic saw nearly as many cases in the first 10 months of this year as in 2008.

Dr Carabot, a consultant in GU medicine, said some 30 to 40 per cent of patients with these two infections should test positive for chlamydia, which made matters more complicated.