US STD Statistics: A Serious Cause for Concern
The US government takes seriously the issue of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Regular STD statistics rounded up every year by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention or CDC prove grim prospects. About 19 million estimated new cases of STD occur every year, almost half of which comprises the younger population of 15 to 24 years old.
Chlamydia
In the 2006 survey of the CDC on the prevalence of chlamydia, syphilis and gonorrhea in the US population, chlamydia appears to be the most widely reported case of STD at 1,030,911 cases. The figure is distinctly higher than the 2005 yield of 976,445 cases. Nevertheless, the reported figures are far from the truth as a majority of cases go unreported, judging alone from CDC estimates of an annual rate of 2.8 million new cases of chlamydia infection in the US.
The increase in figures from 2005 to 2006 can be attributed to two things. Either that chlamydia testing has become more successful in terms of outreach and effectiveness of the technology itself, or that the incidence of infection has actually increased.
STD statistics show that young women aged 15-24 are more prone to chlamydia infection compared to men of the same age group with a ratio of 3:1. Chlamydia infection is also more evident in African American compared to other women of racial and ethnic groups with a rate of 1,760.9 cases for every 100,000 black women. Following the lead are American Indians and Alaska native females at a rate of 1,262.3, Hispanic women at 761.3, white females at 237.0 and women of Asian and Pacific Islander descent at 201.2.
Gonorrhea
The CDC’s 2006 STD statistics reveal that gonorrhea cases increased by 5.5% to 358,366 cases based on 2005 figures. Gonorrhea is second to chlamydia in the most reported cases of STD nationwide. Although a slight increase was observed from 2004-2006, gonorrhea cases have declined significantly from 1975 to 1997. However, the result of the study on gonorrhea cases are still not reflective of reality which the CDC believes is actually about twice than reported figures.
Even more importantly, the CDC has been monitoring the increased incidence of drug resistance in the population. The 2006 study showed that 13.8% of gonorrhea samples were resistant to the antibiotic fluoroquinolones, the primary drug used to treat the disease.
This also further establishes an increasing trend in drug resistance with an incidence rate of 9.4% in 2005 and 6.8 % in 2004. The statistics also showed a significant increase of incidence in both men who have sex with men or MSM and heterosexuals. Thus, the CDC released a new set of guidelines for treating gonorrhea in April 2007 totally banning fluoroquinolones for treatment of the disease in the US.
Primary and Secondary Syphilis
STD statistics for primary and secondary syphilis cases for every 100,000 population also increased by 13.8% to 9,756 in 2006 from 2005 figures. Similar to the case of gonorrhea, the incidence of syphilis has plummeted significantly through the 1990s up to the year 2000. However, the incidence of infection in males has increased steadily from 2001 up to 2006 while the incidence in females have only exhibited increase in the previous 2 years from 2004 to 2006. GP