Yesterday, August 28th, public health officials announced that sexually transmitted infections rates reached new highs across the US in 2017. STIs like chlamydia, syphilis, and gonorrhea are among the most prevalent one in the States. The causes of this rise were not yet released, but the CDC stressed that poverty, stigma, discrimination, and drug consumption are behind the surge of the sexually transmitted infections and diseases.
In 2017, across the United States, there were more than 2.3 million cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “This surpassed the previous record set in 2016 by more than 200,000 cases,” as the CDC reported.
According to the latest data on STIs rated in the US, between 2013 and 2017, syphilis rates surged by 76 percent, soaring from 17,375 confirmed cases to 30,644 by the end of the last year. On the other hand, gonorrhea infections incidence grew by 67 percent, from 333,004 to 555,608 cases.
Sexually transmitted infections rates soared in 2017 with chlamydia as the most common STI
While the health officials in the US claimed that all STIs rates surged significantly between 2013 and 2017, chlamydia remained the most prevalent one among all the sexually transmitted infections.
In 2017, the CDC confirmed more than 1.7 million cases of chlamydia across the United States with approximately 45% of the infections occurring in young women of between 15 and 24 years old.
On the other hand, the STDs rates soared in gay men going up from 169,130 cases in 2013 to 322,169 last year.
“We are sliding backward. It is evident the systems that identify, treat, and ultimately prevent STDs are strained to near-breaking point,” stated Jonathan Mermin, the Director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention within the CDC.
All the before-mentioned sexually transmitted infections, chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis, are treatable with antibiotics. The problem is that these conditions usually go unnoticed and people do not leave them untreated, increasing the risks of infertility, ectopic pregnancy, stillbirth in infants, and HIV infection.
