Pharmacists across the State will be the focus for a summer health promotion campaign seeking to raise awareness about contraception and sexual health, it has been announced.
Due to begin in June, 1,400 pharmacists will join forces with the Health Promotion Unit and the Crisis Pregnancy Agency for the initiative which will also target those facing crisis pregnancy.
The campaign was launched on Saturday at the annual meeting of the Irish Pharmaceutical Union, held in Wicklow.
At the conference, Caroline Spillane, programme manager of Crisis Pregnancy Agency, said that as many as 1 in 3 women who have been pregnant in the Republic have experienced a "crisis" pregnancy.
She also said that there had been a six-fold increase in sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) between 1989 and 2003.
Noting that over 60 per cent of STIs occurred in people aged between 20 and 29, Ms Spillane said: "This age group is more likely to have higher numbers of sexual partners, change partners more frequently and engage in high-risk behaviour such as unprotected sex with new sex partners."
She said the most commonly reported STI here was genital warts.
Cases of infection with the chlamydia bug continue to increase significantly but because of the nature of the disease, it is believed that the actual prevalence of chlamydia in the community may be significantly understated.
Of women reporting "crisis" pregnancies, Ms Spillane said 62 per cent did not use contraception.
Some 51 per cent of these women said they had not used contraceptives because sex was unplanned.