Although previous reports have shown that sexually transmitted diseases are on decline in the United States, the most recent of its kind shows the opposite. The annual report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention titled “Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance, 2007” reveals a high burden of STDs, especially among women and racial minorities.
Cases of chlamydia in 2007 set a record. There were 1.1 million cases, the most ever reported, meaning an increase from about 1 million in 2006. The rate among women was 3-fold that of men in 2007 (543.6 cases per 100,000 women compared to 190 cases per 100,000 men).
Chlamydia has no symptoms sometimes but can lead to infertility in women. Some women though may experience pain in their lower abdomen or notice a burning sensation or a pus-like discharge when they urinate. The increase might be a result of better screening.
“The issue with chlamydia is the more tests, the more you’ll find,” said Dr. Jonathan Zenilman, a professor of infectious diseases at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
According to the National Committee for Quality Assurance, a nonprofit that monitors health care, the percentage of young women being tested for the infection rose by double digits from 2003 to 2007.
Gonorrhea rates, however, were stable in 2007, the report found. There were 355,991 cases of gonorrhea infections in 2007. The disease has come down since its peak in the 1970s, “but we just got stuck in the late 1990s, and we’ve been stuck ever since then,” said Dr. John M. Douglas Jr., director of the CDC's Division of STD Prevention.
Both diseases (chlamydia and gonorrhea), if left untreated, can cause pelvic inflammatory disease, a condition that causes as many as 50,000 women in the US to become infertile every year, the report notes.
Syphilis rates have been increasing 81 percent since 2001, the CDC report noted. In 2006, there were 5.6 cases per 100,000 among men compared to 6.6 in 2007. Among women, the corresponding rates were 1.0 and 1.1, the report found. There was a 28 percent increase in cases of congenital syphilis from 2005 to 2007. Overall, primary and secondary, early latent, late, late latent, and congenital syphilis cases increased 10.7 percent from 36,968 in 2006 to 40,920 in 2007.
The report also found continued racial disparities for STD cases. More exactly, blacks had the highest number of STDs. Gonorrhea was 19 times more common among blacks than whites; chlamydia was eight times more common; and syphilis was seven times more common, the report found.
Dr. Douglas said people need to be informed on these diseases in order to reverse the number of cases. “These diseases can be treated, and we need to have better awareness about how extensive these infections are and what the prevention opportunities are,” he said.
