Hi there, I'm Mrs. Kim and welcome to today's lesson all about sexually transmitted infections.

This fits into the health and disease topic, so let's get started then.

Our main outcome for today is I can describe examples of common sexually transmitted infections in humans and ways to reduce their spread.

These are some of the key terms that we're going to be using today and if you'd like to pause the video and read them in a bit more detail, please do that now.

Otherwise rest assured that I will go through each of these as we move through the learning cycles.

So we've got three main learning cycles for today.

We've got gonorrhoea, chlamydia and HIV.

Of course we'll be starting with the first one, gonorrhoea.

So let's just make sure that we understand this term pathogen first of all, so a pathogen is a virus, bacterium or other microorganism that is able to cause a disease.

We've got some different types.

Then we've got viruses, bacteria, fungi and protists.

Now as we already know, actually not all examples of these types of microorganisms will cause disease.

Some of them are actually very helpful to us.

For example, we use fungi to help us to produce different types of cheeses, but if they are a problem and they do cause disease in living organisms, then actually we call them pathogens.

Now pathogens are easily spread from person to person or organism to organism and there are a number of different ways such as direct contact, so actually touching the skin of somebody that has been infected through bodily fluids such as mucus and saliva, and we can see there that and sneezing, as they sneeze, those droplets of mucus will contain the pathogen and they can be breathed in or touch surfaces that other people may touch and actually then spread that pathogen from organism to organism, but also during sexual activity, which is the one that we're going to be focusing on today.

So infections that are spread through sexual activity are known as sexually transmitted infections and we often shorten that to STIs.

The first example of an STI then is gonorrhoea.

Okay, and gonorrhoea is caused by a pathogen that is a bacterium.

The types of symptoms that someone may experience if they have gonorrhoea then are green and yellow discharge from the penis or vagina, a burning pain when urinating.

So when you go to the toilet it feels like it's burning and unfortunately, if left untreated, gonorrhoea can actually lead to infertility.

Infertility means that the person is no longer able to have children without having some kind of other intervention to help them.

So how can we help to prevent the spread of STIs? The main way then is barrier methods of contraception such as condoms and around one in 10 infected men and almost half of infected women don't actually experience any symptoms when infected with gonorrhoea.

Obviously that is an issue because actually people do not realise that they have it and therefore they may think, actually I'm safe.

I don't need to use a barrier type method of contraception when having sexual intercourse because they think that they're protected.

But actually you don't know and so it's always better to make sure that you are safe.

It is recommended that anyone engaging in sexual activity should make sure that they also have regular STI checks, sorry.

And so that means going to a clinic and having lots of different checks for all the different types of STIs just to make sure that you haven't picked one up and you don't know.

So anyone that contracts gonorrhoea will need antibiotics.

Antibiotics are chemicals that we use as medicine.

Often they're produced by different types of fungi and they can be used to kill bacteria.

They're usually administered as an injection and we can see a needle there that would be needed to inject that.

And unfortunately, gonorrhoea is a pathogen that's now resistant to many types of antibiotics such as penicillin, which is one of the most common types of antibiotics that we use and only a few antibiotics actually remain that can be used to treat that infection and it may mean that you need to have a course of a few different types of antibiotics in order to make sure that you get rid of that infection.

Okay, then onto our first check, which type of pathogen causes gonorrhoea? Is it A, bacteria, B, protists, or C fungus? I'll give you a moment to think about it, but if you need more time, please pause the video.

Okay, did you remember that it is A, bacteria.

Excellent, well done.

Which type of contraception can help to stop the spread of gonorrhoea, A, the combined pill, B, condoms or C, copper coil? I'll give you a moment to think about it, but if you need more time, please pause the video.

Okay, did you realise that it is B, condoms? Excellent, that's our only barrier method on the slide.

So onto our first task of the day, and this one is task A.

If you open up your worksheet so you can record your answers on there.

A patient has come to a sexual health clinic for some advice.

The partner has been diagnosed with gonorrhoea and they're concerned they may also have contracted it.

Can you number one, give them some advice on signs and symptoms of gonorrhoea.

Number two, inform them of what treatment they might need and advise on how to prevent infection in the future.

I'll give you a moment to think about it, but if you need more time, please pause the video.

Okay, did you get number one, some advice on the signs and symptoms, green or yellow discharge from the penis or vagina, burning pain when urinating.

Number two, treatment and prevention.

Anyone engaging in sexual activity should get regular STI checks to make sure they and their partner are free from infection.

They should avoid sexual activity whilst their partner is being treated for gonorrhoea.

If they have gonorrhoea, they will need antibiotics.

Hopefully you got all of those down, but if not, please feel free to add to your answer.

Well done, onto our second learning cycle of the day then, this one is all about chlamydia.

So chlamydia is also a sexually transmitted infection that is caused by a bacterium.

It's actually one of the most common STIs in the UK with the highest rates of incidents in sexual active, sexually active, sorry, 15 to 24 year olds.

So we're talking the sort of lower ages of people that are engaging in sexual activity.

The NHS actually recommends that anyone who is under the age of 25 and is sexually active should make sure that they have a chlamydia test at least once a year.

So they're saying that actually, you should just be testing regularly because it is so prevalent in this country.

You can get test kits that you can do at home and so you don't actually need to go into the doctors in order to be tested for chlamydia.

Sort of symptoms that you might experience then, again, a burning pain when urinating.

So when you're going to the toilet, yellow and green discharge from the penis or vagina, bleeding in between periods.

So if you have a breakout bleed during your menstrual cycle that isn't in the timing of your normal period, that could indicate there is an issue.

Abdominal pain, swollen testicles.

However, again, just like with gonorrhoea, most people that have do not actually have any signs or symptoms of chlamydia, so you may not even realise that you have it.

If left untreated, chlamydia can lead to infertility, which is where somebody is not able to have children easily or without some sort of intervention.

So chlamydia infection can be treated using antibiotics because again, it is a bacterial infection which is killed by antibiotics.

It's important to make sure that you abstain from sexual activity whilst infected until you and your partner, so the person that you have been engaging in sexual activity with have been treated for the infection.

This will make sure that you then don't reinfect one another.

When taking antibiotics, it's really important that you complete the full course that you are given by the doctor.

So if there are a whole week's worth of antibiotics but actually you feel better after two days or your symptoms go away after two days, it's really important that you make sure that you continue for the whole week and that is to try to stop developing bacteria that are resistant to different types of antibiotics.

Okay, onto our next check, which type of pathogen causes chlamydia? A, bacteria, B, protists or C, virus? I'll give you a moment to think about it, but if you need more time, please pause the video.

Okay, did you realise that it's A, bacteria? Excellent, well done.

So onto our second task of the day then, this one is task B.

Please open up your worksheet so you can record your answer on there.

This is actually in two parts.

So the first part, decide which of the statements only apply to chlamydia and not gonorrhoea is caused by a bacteria can lead to infertility, swollen testicles, yellow discharge from penis or vagina, bleeding between periods, treat with antibiotics, burning pain when urinating, prevent the spread with condoms and prevent the spread through abstinence.

I'll give you a moment to think about it, but if you need more time, please pause the video.

Okay, did you realise that it was swollen testicles and bleeding between periods? The other types of symptoms are similar for both chlamydia and gonorrhoea.

Onto the second part of this task then.

A student has been reading about STIs and says, I'm not worried about catching chlamydia because I know I can easily get treated with antibiotics.

Can you write some advice to the student? I'll give you a moment to think about it, but if you need more time, please pause the video.

Okay, let's have a look at some advice we could give to the student then.

Chlamydia is a very common STI in the UK, especially in 15 to 24 year olds, chlamydia and other STIs are becoming resistant to many antibiotics, so it is very important to protect yourself if you have sex by using a barrier method of contraception.

This will help to protect against infection with chlamydia and other STIs.

I hope you got all of that down, but if you want to add a little bit more to your answer, please do that now.

Okay, onto our final learning cycle of the day.

Then this one is HIV.

So HIV actually stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus and it's the virus that can cause damage to your immune system.

The way that it does that then, it actually infects your white blood cells.

So we've got an image there of a HIV particle and we've got an image there of a white blood cell that we find in your immune system.

HIV is actually spread through bodily fluids, things like blood, vaginal fluids, semen and also breast milk.

Breast milk is quite a problem in areas where they have really high numbers of HIV infection and often the mother doesn't actually pass the HIV particle over to the baby during pregnancy, although that can also happen.

Actually, then when the baby comes out and the mother feeds the baby through breast milk, they're much more likely to have that HIV particle passed to them and they're much more likely to then become HIV positive.

Some examples of groups of people that are more at risk than others from HIV infection then are people that are having unprotected sex, intravenous drug users and those are people that are using needles and passing those around and that's because if you have a needle that one person has used and then it gets passed to another person without being cleaned properly, so properly sterilised or using a completely different needle would be the better way to do that, then actually what you can do is you can spread the virus from one person to another person very easily.

Also, people having a blood transfusion, so where they are having blood taken from one person and putting to them and maybe they've lost blood due to an accident or maybe they have some sort of bloodborne disease like haemophilia and need regular blood transfusions.

Then in some countries actually the screening process for that blood is not as rigorous as we find here in the UK and actually what that means is that you are much more likely to be spreading HIV from one person to another.

That's not really a risk in this country anymore as the screening process is so rigorous.

Okay, can you match the disease to the type of pathogen that causes it? We've got gonorrhoea, chlamydia and HIV, the types of pathogen, then bacteria, virus, protists and fungi.

I'll give you a moment to think about it, but if you need more time, please pause the video.

Okay, did you realise that both gonorrhoea and chlamydia are examples of bacteria? HIV is a virus, excellent, well done.

So if you are actually HIV positive, the initial symptoms are quite a little bit like the flu.

So a high temperature for example, feeling very tired and this happens about two to six weeks after infection.

From that point, those symptoms can disappear and actually you may not experience any other symptoms for quite a long period of time.

So it could be years later that you actually experience any more symptoms. Many people with HIV then do not realise that they're actually infected within that time period and so this is why it makes it so easy to spread because people do not actually realise that they have it.

If you are a person that thinks that they may have HIV, so if you have had unprotected sex or you are a person that is using drugs intravenously, then you should make sure that you get tested regularly.

So white blood cells play an important role in the body's immune system to help fight infections.

When HIV infects a person's white blood cell, then what happens is that the HIV virus can start replicating inside those white blood cells.

Once the white blood cell has assembled that HIV particle, what happens to them is they burst out of that cell.

When they burst out of that cell, that white blood cell obviously dies and this is when your immune system can become very, very damaged.

If you have a damaged immune system then, it can lead to Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome.

This is AIDS and this is life-threatening for a person because it means that they are very, very susceptible to any other type of infection that maybe wouldn't normally kill a person.

Such diseases like tuberculosis and pneumonia tend to be the ones that really have an effect on people that have AIDS.

AIDS is the symptom of HIV.

You cannot pass AIDS from person to person.

It is HIV that you pass from person to person.

AIDS is a long-term consequence of HIV infection.

So there are ways to prevent you from becoming infected with HIV.

If you are having sex, then you should be making sure that you are using a barrier method of contraception.

Avoid recreational injection of drugs such as heroin, making sure that people that are working with patients, for example, medical staff that may have to use injections for people and may actually come in contact with other people's blood.

Make sure that there is a safe way of disposing of any infected sharp objects.

There is a type of emergency medication then if you think that you may have been infected with the virus, if you can get to A&E within 72 hours of the infection and take this medication, it can really help to slow or stop or completely prevent you from getting HIV.

There isn't actually a cure for HIV infection once you get it.

However, there are antiviral drugs that can reduce the viral load, so the number of those HIV particles in your blood, to actually undetectable levels and also this will really slow down the development of AIDS and so people who have HIV infection now, as long as they're on the right types of drugs, they can actually lead quite a normal, healthy life.

People living with HIV are advised to stay healthy and reduce risk factors of other diseases, things like exercising regularly, eating a balanced diet, making sure that they're not smoking and also getting the flu jab every year will make sure that they are putting themselves in the best place to be healthy.

Okay, so how can a person reduce their risk of HIV infection, A, use barrier methods during sexual activity, B, exercise, C, eat a balanced diet or D, avoid recreational injection of drugs.

I'll give you a moment to think about it, but if you need more time, please pause the video.

Okay, did you get, use a barrier method during sexual activity and avoid recreational injection of drugs? Excellent, well done.

Okay, onto our final task of the day then, this one's task C.

Again, you can record this on your worksheet.

Number one, how is HIV spread? Number two, tuberculosis is a serious bacterial infection, however it can often be successfully treated with antibiotics.

Why is a person that is HIV positive more to die from TB? I'll give you a moment to think about it, but if you need more time, please pause the video.

Okay, so HIV is spread through bodily fluids such as blood, semen, vaginal discharge and also breast milk.

Number two, why is someone more likely to die from TB if they have HIV? So when left untreated, HIV can replicate inside white blood cells.

White blood cells are important part of the body's immune system.

When the new virus particles burst out, they damage the cell and the immune system.

With a compromised immune system, the person is no longer able to effectively fight infections such as TB.

I hope you got all those points down, but again, if you wish, you can add some more to your answer.

So we're very nearly finished.

I'm just going to go through those key learning points with you today.

Pathogens are microorganisms that cause disease.

Some pathogens can be spread through bodily fluids and sexual activity.

Gonorrhoea and chlamydia are bacterial diseases that can be spread through sexual activity and are sexually transmitted infections, STIs, bacterial infections can be treated with antibiotics, but there is an increasing risk of antibiotic resistance in bacteria.

Barrier methods of contraception such as condoms can help to reduce the spread of sexually transmitted infections.

HIV as a common STI caused by a virus, during late stage infection, it damages the immune system causing AIDS.

People living with AIDS are more susceptible to diseases.

I hope you found this information really informative today and I'm so glad that you decided to learn with me.

Thanks, see you again, bye.