Community based study of treatment seeking among subjects with symptoms of sexually transmitted disease in rural Uganda

Two important impediments to the control of sexually transmitted diseases in Africa are unrecognised infections and ineffective treatment of infected people with symptoms. 1 We report on treatment seeking among people with symptoms in a cohort in rural Uganda and quantify the extent to which asymptomatic infections and treatment seeking behaviour may affect control of sexually transmitted disease. Comment In this study of treatment seeking for sexually transmitted diseases we have shown that relying on the treatment of only those with symptoms would reach only a small proportion of the infected population and that many would be unlikely to receive effective care. [...]sexually transmitted disease control programmes in medically underserved populations must take into account both the prevalence of asymptomatic infections and the current health related practices of people with symptoms to design appropriate strategies to reduce transmission of these diseases.