Reports of sexually transmitted disease are spiking in the U.S., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though much of that increase is owed to better screening.
More than one million cases of chlamydia were reported in the United States last year — the most ever reported for a sexually transmitted disease, U.S. health officials said Tuesday.
Officials at the CDC said they think better and more intensive screening accounts for much of the increase but added that chlamydia is not the only sexually transmitted disease on the rise.
Gonorrhea rates are jumping again after hitting a record low, and an increasing number of cases are caused by a "superbug" version resistant to common antibiotics.
Syphilis is rising, too. The rate of congenital syphilis — which can deform or kill babies — rose for the first time in 15 years. "Hopefully we will not see this turn into a trend," said Dr. Khalil Ghanem, an infectious diseases specialist at Johns Hopkins University's school of medicine.
The CDC releases a report each year on chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis, three diseases caused by sexually transmitted bacteria.
Chlamydia is the most common. Nearly 1,031,000 cases were reported last year, up from 976,000 the year before.
The count broke the single-year record for reported cases of a sexually transmitted disease, which was 1,013,436 cases of gonorrhea, set in 1978.
Putting those numbers into rates, there were about 348 cases of chlamydia for every 100,000 people in 2006, up 5.6 per cent from the 329 out of 100,000 rate in 2005.
Testing more routine, effective
Since 1993, the CDC has recommended annual screening in sexually active women ages 15 to 25. Meanwhile, urine and swab tests for the bacteria are improving and are used more often, for men as well as women, said Dr. John Douglas, director of the CDC's Division of Sexually Transmitted Disease Prevention.
About three-quarters of women infected with chlamydia have no symptoms. Left untreated, the infection can spread and ultimately can lead to infertility. It's easily treated if caught early.
Health officials believe as many as 2.8 million new cases may actually be occurring each year, he added.
In 2004, the U.S. gonorrhea rate fell to 112.4 cases for every 100,000 people in 2004, the lowest level since the government started tracking cases in 1941. But since then, health officials have seen two consecutive years of increases. The 2006 rate — about 121 out of 100,000 — represents a 5.5 per cent increase over 2005.
Syphilis, a potentially deadly disease that first shows up as genital sores, has become relatively rare in the United States. About 9,800 cases of the most contagious forms or syphilis were reported in 2006, up from about 8,700 in 2005.
The rate rose from 2.9 cases out of 100,000 people to 3.3, a 14 per cent increase.
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