PLANS are well under way to launch an important new screening programme in York, with the aim of detecting a "silent" sexually-transmitted disease.

People under the age of 25 in the city are to be offered the chance to be screened for chlamydia - an infection which often shows no symptoms, but can cause infertility, pain, ectopic pregnancy and infection in babies if left untreated.

Experts believe that at least half - and perhaps as many as 75 per cent - of sufferers in the city are unaware that they have an infection and are therefore putting themselves and their partners at risk.

York is one of ten locations across the country chosen to launch the screening programme following pilot schemes in Portsmouth and the Wirral.

York Health Service NHS Trust was given £150,000 to set up the programme, which aims to cut the increasing numbers of male and female sufferers in the city.

Screening, which involves a simple urine sample test, will at first be offered at family planning services, selected young person's services and ante natal clinics.

If successful the programme could be expanded.

Recruitment is currently taking place for the programme, which will be launched later this year.

Liz Hare, programme co-ordinator and sexual health nurse, said the programme was vitally important for the city.

She said: "We know that the majority of people with chlamydia won't have any signs or symptoms.

"If we simply waited for people to develop problems then we would be missing out on picking it up early.

"This idea of screening is fantastic, it's for people under the age of 25 as we know they are the ones most at risk and at least half of them and as many as 75 per cent of them won't know they have got it."

Updated: 09:13 Friday, February 28, 2003