Australian women to get home self tests for chlamydia and gonorrhoea – but experts urge caution

With rates of some sexually transmitted infections in Australia on the rise, women will soon be able to test themselves for chlamydia and gonorrhoea at home – but sexual health experts have urged caution.Australia’s drugs regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), has approved the rapid home test for sale, and it is expected to be available in pharmacies from 13 December, with a recommended retail price of $24. The test involves taking a vaginal swab, which is then placed in a container with testing solution.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news emailDr Sara Whitburn, the deputy medical director at Sexual Health Victoria, said while greater access to testing is crucial for reducing transmission of sexually transmitted infections, and new initiatives to encourage testing are welcome, there are important caveats around the home test.“It’s important to note that the test is validated only for vaginal samples, meaning it cannot be used to screen for oral or anal chlamydia and gonorrhoea,” she said

The horror and history of drug-facilitated rape: ‘When I woke up my body felt battered’

Gisèle Pelicot waived her anonymity to put drug-facilitated rape in the spotlight, and her experiences of sexual violence have shocked the world. So what else do we know about this most hidden of crimes?A magistrate and HR executive in her late 50s, settled, single, not dating or sexually active, Jo felt that her risk of becoming a victim of rape had passed, or was certainly low – and that drug-facilitated rape in particular was something that happened to young people, in clubs, at parties, “on the apps”. When it happened to her two years ago, it was her adult son who had to make sense of it, and explain why she’d woken up naked beside a man she had no feelings for, blood on the bed, pain between her legs, her memory of that night a blank space.Her rapist was someone she had known since secondary school, a former classmate who, until that week in November 2022, she hadn’t seen since their final A-level. At some point, he had emigrated and then connected with Jo (not her real name) through Friends Reunited

Wes Streeting orders review of physician associates’ role in NHS

Wes Streeting has ordered a review of what physician associates (PAs) do in the NHS, amid growing alarm in the medical profession about patient safety.It will examine the safety of their roles and how patients should be made aware that, despite their titles and ability to diagnose illness, they are not doctors and can only perform certain tasks.The health secretary has appointed Prof Gillian Leng, an expert in evidence-based healthcare and former chief executive of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, to lead the review.About 3,500 PAs and about 100 equivalents who work in anaesthesia – called anaesthetic associates – are working in hospitals and GP surgeries in England. Taken together the number of “medical associate professionals” (MAPs), as they are known in the NHS, is due to treble to about 10,000 by 2037 under the service’s long-term workforce plan

Physical fitness can lower risk of dementia, research finds

Being physically fit can lower the risk of dementia and delay someone developing it by almost 18 months by boosting brain health, research has found.Regular exercise is so useful for maintaining cognitive function that it can even help people who are genetically more predisposed to dementia to reduce their risk by up to 35%.The findings add to the evidence that staying fit during the course of one’s life is a key way of lowering the likelihood of developing the disease.The study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that people with the highest cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) also had higher cognitive function and a lower risk of dementia.The researchers analysed the health of 61,214 people who were aged between 39 and 70 when they enrolled in the UK Biobank study between 2009 and 2010, none of whom had dementia at the time

Winter fuel payment cuts may force 100,000 pensioners ‘below poverty line’

Cuts to the winter fuel allowance could force 100,000 pensioners in England and Wales into relative fuel poverty, government analysis has shown, as ministers come under mounting pressure over measures in last month’s budget.Internal government modelling shows the decision to remove the benefit from millions of pensioners will push about 50,000 more people into relative poverty next year, and another 50,000 by the end of the decade.The figures, which are rounded to the nearest 50,000, take into account the impact of housing costs, but not of thousands more people claiming pension credit since a government campaign earlier this year.The analysis was published in a letter from Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, on Tuesday, just as temperatures plunged and parts of the UK experienced their first snowfall of the year. The letter also coincided with a large-scale protest by farmers in Westminster, with thousands turning up to demonstrate against a rise in inheritance tax for agricultural properties