‘A Preventable Health Crisis In the City’

Your paper and Alicia Colon deserve much credit for bringing to the attention of the public the lack of testing for genital herpes at the city’s Department of Health’s Sexually Transmitted Disease clinics [“A Preventable Health Crisis In the City,” September 1, 2006].

Genital herpes affects about 45 million people in the United States and about 1.4 million New Yorkers, making it the most prevalent STD in the country. Yet the city’s STD program does not offer any cultures or blood tests for herpes in any of their 10 STD centers throughout the city.

Having genital herpes triples the risk of contracting HIV disease and if one is HIV positive then having herpes makes the risk of transmitting the HIV five times more likely. To decrease the spread of HIV we must decrease the spread of herpes.

Once a person knows that they have genital herpes there are simple steps that they can do to decrease the risk of transmitting the infection to others, including abstinence, condom use, telling their partners that they have herpes and taking daily suppressive therapy. The STD Bureau’s plan of not offering herpes testing makes no sense.

People need to know if they are infected or if their partners are infected. A simple culture and /or blood test, which can cost between $12 and $20, will provide the answer.

What is the city waiting for?

It is time for responsible health officials to find the funds and make testing for genital herpes available to all patients who use the public STD clinics in New York City.

JEFFREY GILBERT
Medical Director
STD Center for Excellence
Bronx, N.Y.

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