Over the past five year, 99 Danish men have brought back a venereal disease after visiting Thailand. But Star Tour, one of the biggest travel agencies in Denmark, does not find it necessary to make their costumers aware of the risk.
A nice and relaxing vacation in the exotic dreamland Thailand is what many Danish males are looking for, when they search the Internet for adventure. But one click on the buy button can also be one click closer to get a venereal disease like syphilis and gonorrhoea.
In just five years 99 Danish men were tested positive after visiting Thailand, new numbers from the Danish Serum Institute, SSI, show. However, Danish travel agencies do not see it their responsibility to help bring down this number.
Nikolai Gaardboe Johnson, chief of press at Star Tour, says that the agency always provides guidance and service. But he doesn’t find it necessary to make their costumers aware of the risk of getting a venereal disease in Thailand.
“Most of our costumers are families and therefore it’s our opinion that it’s not necessary to inform explicit about venereal diseases,” he says.
More cases and risk of HIV
Susan Cowan is a physician in infectious diseases at SSI, the Serum Institute in Denmark. According to her, the number of cases in 2014 were unusually low – only nine cases were reported. But this year she expects the numbers to grow.
“Our experience from earlier years tells us that more cases will come. Another fact is that some doctors forget to inform us if they had a case, and also some men don’t want to tell, from where they got the disease,” Susan Cowan says.
When it comes to HIV, Thailand is still a hot spot. In 2012, 25 men from Denmark got HIV – 7 of them got it from Thailand. Read the latest update in EPI-NYT by SSI in Danish here: http://www.ssi.dk/Aktuelt/Nyhedsbreve/EPI-NYT/2013/Uge%2044%20-%202013.aspx
“Today there are still people from Denmark coming home with HIV after visiting the country, and that makes Thailand an interesting place,” she says.
According to Susan Cowan most of the men who gets a venereal disease in Thailand are older men.
From what we hear it is just as easy to get venereal diseases in Copenhagen and Oslo,
no need to go to Thailand for that.