A letter on 16 June from the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) to all its members and doctors has drawn on research from Prof Jackie Cassell, Deputy Dean at BSMS, and former trainees, Dr Sophie Herbert and Kirsty Hewitt.
The letter advised sexual health doctors on what actions to take now that monkeypox virus is a notifiable disease. This means all doctors in England, including those working in sexual health clinics, are required to notify their local UK Health Security Agency Health Protection Team, on behalf of their local authority, if they suspect a patient has monkeypox virus.
The advice was based on research titled “Do genitourinary physicians report notifiable diseases? A survey in South East England”. The findings of this study were used to write guidance for doctors in 2014, which BASHH linked to in its monkeypox advice as a resource for colleagues.
Prof Cassell said: “In 2013, I supervised Dr Herbert and Ms Hewitt in doing a survey of sexual health doctors to see how they dealt with notifiable diseases when they appeared in sexual health clinics (e.g measles, hepatitis A) under the Health Protection Regulations 2010. These infections often require public health actions that need to be taken outside sexual health e.g. someone with hepatitis A acquired through sex may work as a food handler; someone may go to sexual health which a rash that turns out to be measles which is potentially infectious to other people in a shared house.
“We found that many sexual health doctors were not well informed about their duties to notify infectious diseases and were not doing so, which could lead to important public health actions not being taken e.g. advice to stay off work as a food handler. We therefore wrote an educational paper, which explained to sexual health doctors their obligations to report, and how to do this while appropriately protecting confidentiality of patients about their sexual health clinic visit.”
As a result of the monkeypox virus outbreak, an updated educational article is planned, and Prof Cassell is looking to work with another trainee to support them in seeing how things have changed and understanding what support is needed for doctors and patients to feel confident with these systems.
Prof Cassell also gave a talk and Q&A session at BASHH’s weekly update session to help them understand their obligations.
Read the guidance paper here >
Read the research paper here >