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Walsall health chiefs defend child HIV revelations

Walsall Council has defended its work preventing underage sex after revelations that more than 1,000 children have been tested for sexually transmitted infections since 2013 while 93 had been diagnosed with HIV.

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The authority has since released a statement which declared teenage contraceptions in general were reducing.

It said: "Walsall Manor Hospital is a regional paediatric and HIV centre, offering specialist treatment to young people who have been sexually assaulted and others who are diagnosed with HIV.

"On the basis of the figures received it is not possible to make any assumptions about the sexual behaviours of Walsall's young people.

"Walsall Council commissions a dedicated sexual health school prevention programme, which includes healthy relationships and sex education, targeted teenage pregnancy work and chlamydia screening for those teenagers identified to be at most risk."

"Walsall's Chlamydia screening programme is held up as good practice and in 2015/16 has been the only programme in the West Midlands Region to have met the Public Health Outcomes Target.

"During the same period national data demonstrates that Walsall prevention programme continues to deliver a significant reduction in teenage conceptions."

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