The U.S. Centers for Disease Control recently released a report about sexually transmitted diseases in America. Would you be surprised to know that nearly twenty million Americans are affected by STDs each year? I was.
Chlamydia reached a record high in 2006 — more than one million new cases reported. This is the second year in a row in which Chlamydia cases increased. Young women between the ages of fifteen and nineteen had the highest Chlamydia rate in the nation. And Chlamydia wasn’t the only sexually transmitted disease on the rise. Gonorrhea and syphilis cases were also up for the second year in a row. The South had the nation’s highest number of gonorrhea cases. And even worse — this STD is becoming resistant to some antibiotics.
Chlamydia and gonorrhea can cause pelvic inflammatory disease in women and lead to infertility. Syphilis can cause neurological damage and fatal infections in infants. Financially speaking, sexually transmitted diseases are costing the United States health care system more than fourteen billion dollars each year.
A spokesman for the CDC called sexually transmitted diseases a “hidden epidemic”. Most people don’t seem to be aware of how many STDs are out there or how to treat them. The CDC hopes that a combination of public education and more attention from health care providers will bring STD rates down again.
The CDC did point out that the increase may be due to more frequent screening and more sensitive testing methods. However, that does not rule out an actual increase in the number of infections. In the case of gonorrhea and Chlamydia, the CDC estimates that there may be twice as many new infections annually than are reported.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control suggests that the following at-risk groups be screened annually for sexually transmitted diseases:
- All women under the age of 26
- African-Americans — black Americans are eight times more likely to have Chlamydia, six times more likely to have syphilis, and eighteen times more likely to have gonorrhea than Caucasians.
- People who have many different partners
- People who have unprotected sex