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Chlamydia trachomatis: summary and conclusions of CMO's Expert Advisory Group

Published: 01/12/1998

The consequences of chlamydia infection are severe and can have lifelong implications. This document seeks to provide evidence to support its recommendations that screening for chlamydia should be offered to all genitourinary medicine clinic attenders, women seeking termination of pregnancy and opportunistic screening for other groups and individuals. The proposed screening programme mainly concentrates on women, as the potential problems are greater, for example, chlamydia infection could produce pelvic inflammatory disease and other pelvic pain, which in turn can result in infertility. In women who do conceive, a number will have ectopic pregnancies, which is the leading cause of maternal death during the first trimester of pregnancy in industrialised countries. Chlamydia has been estimated to account for 40% of such pregnancies and this figure is rising. The report describes a range of possible screening options, including targeting certain populations, a register based screening programme and opportunistic screening and the advantages and disadvantages are discussed. Four main areas for future research are also proposed.

• Chlamydia trachomatis: summary and conclusions of CMO's Expert Advisory Group