Warning over rising rates of condition impacting women

Chlamydia was the most commonly reported STI in Australia with more than 100,000 diagnoses in 2024, half of which were among people aged 20 to 29 years.

Yet analysis by the Kirby Institute has found just 16 per cent of Australians aged 16 to 49 years had ever been tested for an STI, showing significant sexual health gaps. 

"Chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis are bacterial infections that can usually be easily treated and cured with antibiotics," epidemiologist Skye McGregor said.

"However, if left untreated, sexually transmissible infections can cause serious long-term health concerns like pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility in women."

Researchers are particularly concerned about the increase in syphilis rates among women of child-bearing age. 

If untreated in pregnancy, a syphilis infection can lead to miscarriage, stillbirth or congenital syphilis, which is when the infection is passed on to the unborn child.

Congenital syphilis cases have more than doubled since 2015 and 34 infant deaths have been attributed to the condition in the past decade. 

Of those, more of than half were among First Nations Australians.

"Congenital syphilis is an extremely serious condition for infants that can result in significant lifelong health impacts and in the most severe cases can be fatal," Dr McGregor said.

Rates of sexually transmissible infections remain high among Indigenous Australians, with chlamydia diagnosed at more than twice the rate, gonorrhoea almost four times higher and syphilis more than five times higher than in non-Indigenous people.

Changing these rates would require culturally safe, community-led action to address sexual health gaps, Yandamanjang First Nations Health Research Program manager Robert Monaghan said.

Stigma and discrimination around STIs - particularly HIV, which is a chronic but manageable condition - are still pervasive, with researchers concerned over their contribution to poorer health outcomes. 

"One of the key things is normalising discussions around sexual health, having those discussions with new sexual partners, with regular sexual partners, having a discussion with your health care provider," Dr McGregor said.

There were 757 HIV diagnoses in 2024, a 27 per cent decline from the past decade. 

More than 60 per cent were attributable to sex between men, 27 per cent to sex among heterosexuals and three per cent to injecting drug use.

There was an individual face and name behind every HIV diagnosis that should not be forgotten, National Association of People with HIV Australia president Scott Harlum said.

"While numbers of new HIV diagnoses are consistent with a decline over the past decade, we need to do much more if we are to reach virtual elimination of domestic HIV transmissions in Australia by 2030," he said.

"Each (person diagnosed) has lived experience of the reasons why health systems have failed to prevent HIV transmission."