DAVID HARDEN/Arizona Daily Wildcat Female condoms are more effective than male condoms for protecting women against HPV, which is the most common STD at the university.

Doctors and nurses at Campus Health Services are expecting another influx of students reporting symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases this October.

Some of the students who are having sex for the first time are contracting STDs, in what has become an annual cycle for healthcare providers on campus.

"We tend to see (STDs) more just after the beginning of school," said Faye Libbey, a nurse practitioner in the Women's Health Clinic at Campus Health. "Freshmen come in who've never been away from home before. They're having relationships that they've never had. They don't even have to have intercourse to get (some STDs), just skin-to-skin contact."

Of 1,281 UA students randomly surveyed in an anonymous questionnaire during spring 2002, about 2 percent reported having the human papillomavirus, which can lead to cervical cancer in women, or genital warts for men and women.

2 percent of the students reported having chlamydia, 1 percent reported genital herpes and 1 percent reported gonorrhea.

But the statistics are not completely accurate because some students who have STDs are unaware of them, said Melissa McGee, coordinator of harm and risk reduction at Campus Health Services.

"I would imagine that these percentages would be a little more elevated if we were able to test students (for STDs)," McGee said.

Most prevalent UA STD

The HPV is the STD Campus Health Center workers see most often.

"HPV is our big one," Libbey said. "I would say it is by far the most common thing we deal with."

About 80 percent of sexually active people will contract the virus at some point in their life, according to the National HPV and Cervical Cancer Prevention Resource Center.

About 20 million people in the United States have the virus. There are different types of the virus, but one type accounts for more than 50 percent of cervical cancer and abnormal cell growth, according to the Center for Disease Control.

The virus is attracting growing attention at the CDC because it is hard to track and highly common among young, sexually active people.

The majority of people infected with HPV do not know it, facilitating its spread and making it somewhat more difficult to address.

The virus is spread from person to person through different types of sexual encounters, including genital skin-to-skin contact.

Sexual penetration is not required to contract the virus, Libbey said.

HPV can also be transmitted through sexual intercourse, anal sex and oral sex.

Usually people with HPV do not see or feel any symptoms.

Some types of HPV cause genital warts ÷ 3-millimeter, red or pink bumps that sometimes show up in clusters.

These warts are sometimes too small to be visible on men or women or can be hidden within the vagina.

The other types of HPV that show up on the woman's cervix, the lower part of the womb, can be detected with pap smears.

Cervical HPV is the only proven cause of cervical cancer and can take one to three years to show up on a test, Libbey said.

The annual pap smear, an examination for abnormalities in the vagina, is the first step in testing for HPV.

A case in point

Students who find out that they have an STD are sometimes referred to Counseling and Psychological Services, or CAPS, when they express fear for their well-being, Libbey said.

"We're trying to let people know that they're not the only person in the world with this," Libbey said. "It won't traumatize their lives. Almost all of them will be just fine."

Students' concerns about STDs range from how it will impact their current or future relationships, confusion about the disease or if the disease is permanent, said Marian Binder, psychologist for CAPS.

Women who go to the Women's Health Clinic at Campus Health also have the option to express concerns about an STD to someone who has one.

"Tamara," a UA graduate student whose real name the Wildcat is withholding for her privacy, has genital herpes.

When she contracted genital herpes, Tamara did not know that herpes could be spread even when there is no current outbreak of lesions.

The herpes simplex virus, a virus that causes outbreaks of fluid-filled blisters, is transmitted when an infected area touches the genitals.

But according to the American College Health Association, herpes can be transmitted even when the person has no visible outbreak of lesions.

Tamara said her boyfriend at the time convinced her that it would be OK to have sex without a condom since there were no visible lesions on his penis.

But she contracted herpes, and within two weeks she was feeling the symptoms of her first outbreak of lesions.

"Girls need to try to have good boundaries because of the way some men tend to exert power and privilege," Tamara said.

Since contracting the virus, she has had three boyfriends who were open-minded when she told them about the disease, she said.

"Because of who they were, they were fine with it," Tamara said.

At first she thought that the only way she would be able to have a relationship is to not tell her partner about the disease, she said.

"But it's not true," Tamara said. "It's easy to live a happy, normal life with the disease."

HPV in men vs. women

While women are supposed to get a pap smear yearly, men are not recommended to go to a clinic for testing on an annual basis.

Men can be tested for gonarrhea and chlamydia ÷ two other STDs ÷ through urine tests, but checking for visible warts or lesions is the only way to screen men for HPV.

Typically men have visible lesions when they have HPV, said Stephen Paul, a physician for Campus Health.

Abstaining from sex is the best way to prevent diseases like HPV, Paul said.

"The thing people need to realize is that the condom only protects you where the condom is," Paul said.

Female condoms are more effective than male condoms for protecting women from HPV because they cover more of the external skin surrounding the vagina, Libbey said.

But female condoms are not a popular form of protection, possibly because of the "squeaking" noise that some girls have complained about, said Jan Abington, nurse practitioner for campus health services.

Treatment methods

HPV does not have a cure, but sometimes disappears by itself, according to the CDC's Division of Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

However, the cervical types of HPV are more likely to remain.

Women with abnormal pap smears should be monitored throughout their life, even if they cease sexual activity, because they could still develop cervical cancer if HPV was found on the cervix at any point in their life.

Prevention for HPV and cervical cancer could improve if vaccine testing is successful.

Anna Giuliano, associate professor of public health, is currently testing a vaccine that could prevent HPV.

Women between the ages of 18 and 23 with no history of cervical cancer are being given the vaccine or the placebo at random.

These women are closely monitored for four years.

So far, the vaccine has been well-tolerated and it looks like the vaccine helps reduce the number of women with dysplasia, or abnormal cell growth on the cervix, Giuliano said.

The vaccine is also being tested on a few women who already have HPV, but nothing has been concluded yet about the vaccine's effects on these women, Giuliano said.