One Record You Don’t Want To Break
Sunday, January 18th, 2009
Microscope
If you’re one that is always striving to break new records, such as basketball or stair-steps, that is admirable. You don’t want to help the STI (Sexually Transmitted Infection) Chlamydia to become the top in the US in infection rates.
The official news: The numbers, from 2007, show that cases of chlamydia as well as syphilis rose for the third year in a row, according to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“The bad news from last year has continued,” said Dr. John M. Douglas Jr., director of the CDC’s Division of STD Prevention. “These infections remain at very high levels, and frankly, unacceptably high.”
Chlamydia and gonorrhea, the two most commonly reported infectious diseases in the United States, together accounted for almost 1.5 million reported cases of sexually transmitted disease (STD) in 2007.
“Chlamydia is at a new all-time record 1.1 million cases — it went up about 7 percent since 2006,” Douglas said. “Gonorrhea is about at 355,000 cases.”
Easily preventable and easily treatable, STDs and STIs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Sexually Transmitted Infections) are on the rise. They are silent, in that you don’t know you have them at first until symptoms appear. Rates are increasing at an alarming rate.
The overall rate of chlamydia infections among women was 543.6 cases per 100,000 females, almost three times the rate among men — 190 cases per 100,000 males, the report said.
The report also found continued increases in rates of syphilis. On the verge of elimination just a decade ago, syphilis rates began increasing in 2001 and rose 15.2 percent between 2006 and 2007, Douglas said.
So, watch yourselves.
