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RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

Trichomoniasis among men presenting to a sexual health clinic in Melbourne, Australia

Esha Abraham A B , Christopher K. Fairley https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9081-1664 A B , Ei T. Aung https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2560-3233 A B , Catriona S. Bradshaw https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6643-5678 A B C , Marcus Y. Chen https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8924-2043 A B , Tiffany R. Phillips https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6920-7710 A B # and Eric P. F. Chow https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1766-0657 A B C # *
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, Alfred Health, Melbourne, Vic. 3053, Australia.

B Central Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Vic. 3004, Australia.

C Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Vic. 3053, Australia.

* Correspondence to: eric.chow@monash.edu
# These authors contributed equally to this paper

Handling Editor: Nittaya Phanuphak

Sexual Health 19(1) 70-73 https://doi.org/10.1071/SH21240
Submitted: 3 December 2021  Accepted: 29 January 2022   Published: 14 February 2022

© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Background: This study aimed to examine the positivity of urethral Trichomonas vaginalis in men attending an urban sexual health clinic in Melbourne, Australia.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of men who were tested for T. vaginalis using nucleic acid amplification test at the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre between August 2018 and May 2021, and calculated the positivity.

Results: Of the 893 men who were tested for T. vaginalis, 12 (1.3%; 95% CI 0.7–2.3) tested positive for T. vaginalis. The positivity of T. vaginalis among men who reported sexual contact with a female partner with T. vaginalis was significantly higher than men who were not contacts (18.6% [8/43] vs 0.5% [4/850], P < 0.001).

Conclusions: The positivity of T. vaginalis was low at our clinic. The high positivity among contacts highlights the importance of partner notification, testing and management.

Keywords: epidemiology, males, partner notification, prevalence, screening, sexual contacts, sexually transmitted infections, sexually transmitted diseases, testing, Trichomonas vaginalis, trichomoniasis.


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