If you’ve had a positive chlamydia test you should tell your current partner (if you have one) and all other sexual partners from the last six months. It’s not just your most recent partner who needs to know, as you may have had chlamydia for a long time without knowing. Condoms are good protection against chlamydia, but we suggest you tell partners even if condoms were used. If you haven’t had any partners in the last six months, you should tell your most recent partner.
It’s okay not to tell someone yourself if you feel this will put you at risk of harm. You should ask your doctor or sexual health service for help with your safety concerns and with anonymously notifying partners if appropriate.
Chlamydia is very infectious and readily spreads to sexual partners. Most people with chlamydia have no symptoms, so don’t realise that they are infected. This means that their sexual partners will not know if they are infected either.
If you have a positive chlamydia test, it’s important to tell your partners so that they can be treated as well. This will prevent them from passing on the infection and will protect them from the health problems caused by chlamydia. Telling all sexual partners from the last six months will ensure that anyone who may have passed chlamydia on to you, and anyone who you have passed chlamydia onto, gets treated. It is difficult to determine who gave chlamydia to whom, but it is important that everyone is treated.
It is important that you don’t get reinfected. Make sure that anyone you have had sex with before your treatment gets treated before you have sex with them again. Helping your current and past partners can help to protect you from chlamydia infection in the future.
Tell your sexual partners that they may have been in contact with chlamydia and that they should be treated. Let them know that chlamydia usually doesn’t have symptoms, so that even if they think they’re okay, they may still carry the infection.
You can tell partners using whatever method works best for you. You might like to tell them in person or by phoning them. Email or SMS are good choices if you don’t want to start a conversation. Give them this web address (www.chlamydiahelp.net) and they will be able to read about chlamydia and find out what to do.
Ask your doctor or sexual health service for a letter or card that you can give to your sexual partners. This will give your partners information about what they should do. Your doctor or sexual health service can also help you work out how best to tell your partners.
You can also ask your sexual health service to tell sexual partners for you – they can do this anonymously, by phone or letter.
Being diagnosed with chlamydia can bring up a lot of different feelings. Sometimes you might feel upset or angry. It is a good idea to talk to your GP or sexual health service about these feelings and ask for help if you need it. If you feel upset at the thought of telling partners, ask for help.