STD report shows chlamydia up, syphilis down
(CBS/AP) A new report found that sexually transmitted diseases are still a big problem in the U.S.
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The report found 19 million Americans have a sexually transmitted disease. It also estimated that these diseases cost the U.S. health care system $17 billion each year - and cost individual sufferers even more in short and long-term health consequences.
"Despite everything we know about how to prevent and treat STDs, they remain one of the more critical challenges in the United States today," Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of the CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention, told Reuters. "We know that this is of major concern because the health consequences can and do last a lifetime if they are untreated."
For the report, researchers combed through state and local data from clinics and doctors' offices. The researchers found cases of some common STDs increased in the U.S. last year.
Chlamydia:
More than 1.3 million cases of chlamydia were reported last year - the largest number ever reported in one year for any condition. Chlamydia diagnoses are up 27 percent from four years ago, but the CDC said there are probably more like 3 million cases of chlamydia in the U.S. - half of those infected just don't realize it yet.
The chlamydia infection rate among blacks was nine times higher than whites and three times higher than Hispanics, the CDC said.
What's behind the rising chlamydia rates? More Americans aren't necessarily contracting the disease - but the CDC said more are getting screened for it. In 2000 only 25 percent of young women were screened for chlamydia - that shot up to 48 percent in 2010.
Gonorrhea:
The number of new gonorrhea cases surpassed 300,000. Though gonorrhea rates have been falling in recent years, CDC officials said in a statement they are concerned that the disease is becoming "resistant to the only available" antibiotics that treat the disease.
Syphilis:
The syphilis rate dropped last year for the first time in a decade. Fewer than 14,000 Americans were reported last year to have the most contagious forms of syphilis. The rate of new cases had been increasing since 2001, but dropped by about 2 percent in 2010. The study found syphilis rates shot up a staggering 134 percent in African-American men - mainly driven by an increase in men who have sex with other men. That finding is "particularly concerning," said the CDC, because there has also been a sharp increase in HIV infections among this population.
"It's not because someone is black or Hispanic or white that results in the differences that we see in STDs," Fenton told Reuters. "It's really what these represent in terms of differences in health insurance coverage, employment status, in ability to access preventive services or curative services."
Some common STDs, like human papillomavirus (HPV) and genital herpes, are not required to be reported to health officials.
Click here to see a snapshot of the CDC's 2010 STD report.
