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Gonorrhea Rate
Rises, Reversing Trend - CDC says
syphilis rates at historic low - By Adam Marcus HealthScout
Reporter
Dec. 5 (HealthScout) - The rate of gonorrhea infection in the
United States has taken a sharp rise, reversing a generation of
steady decline. The number of Americans with
the sexually transmitted disease rose by 9 percent between 1997
and 1999, after falling 10 percent a year between 1985 and
1996, according to a new report on sex infections by the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate had fallen 72 percent
since 1975.
While it's too soon to know how much of the trend is real and how
much stems from improved screening measures, experts say the
figures are disconcerting.
Dr. Ronald Valdiserri, deputy director of the center's HIV, STD
and TB programs, says the gonorrhea figures are a "broad
wake-up call" to public health workers to improve the quality
of programs to prevent and treat the infection. Not surprisingly,
experts say, the states with the highest rates of gonorrhea tend
to be poor, Southern, having limited initiatives to combat
sexually transmitted infections.
The cities with the worst rates of gonorrhea include Memphis, New
Orleans, Richmond and Norfolk, Va., as well as Chicago, Detroit,
Indianapolis, Washington, D.C. and Newark, N.J.
The incidence of gonorrhea is rising among
gay and bisexual men, officials say, which is particularly
alarming. Men who have sex with other men are two to five times
more likely to get the AIDS virus if they have gonorrhea. In
addition to its effect on HIV transmission, gonorrhea can lead to
sterility and potentially fatal tubal pregnancies, Valdiserri
says.
Syphilis rate at historic low
Although the outlook for gonorrhea is troubling, health officials
say they're encouraged by trends for syphilis. The once-rampant
illness is at an all-time low, falling from a rate of 3.2 cases
per 100,000 people in 1997 to 2.5 cases per 100,000 in 1999 -
thanks to a plan launched last fall to wipe out the infection.
"Undoubtedly, this nation has made a fairly substantial
commitment to a targeted national plan to eliminate
syphilis," says Dr. Judith Wasserheit, director of the CDC's
STD program. "You're seeing the impact of those targeted
efforts."
Syphilis rates fell significantly among African-Americans, a
high-risk group, and the number of babies born with the infection
was cut in half between 1997 and 1999, officials say. At last
count, nearly 80 percent of the nation's 3,115 counties reported
no case of primary or secondary syphilis. That sort of success is
needed with chlamydia, Wasserheit
says. With some 660,000 cases a year, the bacterial illness is the
country's most commonly reported infection, sexual or otherwise.
Combined with unreported cases, particularly among men, the number
of people with the disease is closer to 3 million.
While screening and treatment programs have been shown to reduce
rates of chalmydia in the states that employ them aggressively,
the incidence of the disease has plateaued or risen slightly in
most parts of the country thanks to inadequate funding of these
efforts, Wasserheit says.
Federally-funded screening programs and other chalmydia services
now cover only 20 percent of at-risk women in 30 states, and half
of these women in the remaining states, the CDC says. Women at
high risk for the disease are young, sexually active, and tend to
be poor. Untreated, chlamydia can cause pelvic inflammatory
disease, which in 20 percent of cases causes infertility.
What To Do
If you're sexually active, the best way to avoid sexually
transmitted diseases is to be safe. Using a condom is key.
To learn more about sexually acquired infections, check out the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, or the
World
Health Organization
05-DEC-2001 -
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