Do asymptomatic STIs need to be treated?

I am Dr. Leandro Mena. I’m an infectious disease specialist and you can ask me anything.

While most STIs are asymptomatic, so people who have may not have any symptoms, [this] doesn’t necessarily mean that they will not have the consequence of these infections, causing severe disease.

For example, chlamydia is the number one cause of infertility. So early, routine screening and treatment [of chlamydia] is really with the goal of preventing tubal infertility and other complications.

With HIV, so often, we see in clinic young men who were diagnosed with gonorrhea and chlamydia or syphilis before an HIV diagnosis. And those STIs are really the alarm, sounding the alarm, right?

So, because of all those reasons, it’s really important to make sure that STIs can treated timely.

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