The epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases (STD) in the Northern Territory shows no signs of abating. Despite public education campaigns, culturally appropriate community-based education and widespread medical interventions, the rates of gonorrhoea, syphilis, donovanosis, genital chlamydia and herpes in our small population continue to top the Australian statistics. HIV, when it does appear in NT Aboriginal communities, will relegate the other STDs to insignificance as it has done in Africa and parts of SE
Asia. Ironically it is the threat of a deadly disease with a high public profile that has finally drawn attention to the traditionally low-profile STDs which for generations have contributed to the ill-health and mortality of Aboriginal people.