Sexually Transmitted Infections in Estonia

Abstract

Estonia, one of the Baltic countries, regained its independence in 1991, after the collapse of the USSR. This process led to great changes in every sphere of life — in politics, in the economy and in medicine. The service providing care for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) was involved in the process of these changes, too. However, freedom was followed not only by great happiness, but also by social destabilization and transformation of the old moral norms, the most evident features of which were the dramatic rise in crime, a sexual revolution and public prostitution. These 2 great simultaneous transformations in the STI care system and public mores led to the rapid increase of STIs in Estonia in the first half of the 1990s. Now some stabilization, and even a fall in incidence has occurred.