STD Report From CDC Has Mixed News

W A S H I N G T O N, Dec. 5, 2000 -- Syphilis rates are thelowest they have been since officials started keeping track inthe United States, the government said today, butgonorrhea rates have started a troubling rise.

These figures suggest that targeted information campaignswork, and that keeping people in the dark about sexuallytransmitted diseases gives those illnesses a chance to takehold, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saidin its report, released at a meeting in Milwaukee.

The United States still has very high rates of sexuallytransmitted diseases or STDs, the CDC said in its report.

“And while some STDs, such as syphilis, have been broughtto all-time lows, others, like genital herpes, gonorrhea andchlamydia, continue to resurge and spread through thepopulation,” it said.

Genital herpes alone affects 20 million Americans.

Syphilis, a scourge for centuries, can cause chronicillness, madness and death, but is easily treated with modernantibiotics. Last year the CDC launched a campaign to wipe itout in the United States.

“Syphilis is going down, we believe, because of ourconcerted efforts at syphilis elimination,” Dr. Ron Valdiserri,deputy director of the CDC’s National Center for HIV, STD andTB prevention, said in a telephone interview.

The efforts include getting local churches and healthauthorities involved, better surveillance and screening.

A Syphilis Low

“Rates of syphilis are at all-time lows — they are thelowest they ever been since we began reporting in 1941,”Valdiserri said. The rate is now 2.5 cases per 100,000 people,down from 3.2 per 100,000 in 1997.

But that figure is the only good news in the report.

“For the first time in two decades we are seeing anincrease in gonorrhea rates,” Valdiserri said.

The gonorrhea rate rose more than 9 percent from 1975 to1999, after a 72 percent decline from 1975 to 1997. This upwardcreep might be due to increased screening and better tests,Valdiserri said.

“But it is also possible there has been a real increase inpersons with gonorrhea. In particular, in men who have sex withmen, we have seen several outbreaks of gonorrhea in the UnitedStates over the past few years.”

The United States looks bad when compared to other richcountries, the report said.

“The reported gonorrhea rate in the United States remainsthe highest of any industrialized country and is roughly 50times that of Sweden and eight times that of Canada,” itreads.

The CDC says 15 million Americans become infected everyyear with an STD, half of which are incurable viral infectionssuch as herpes or human papilloma virus, the cause ofgenital warts and cervical cancer. Such incurable STDs affect65 million Americans.

It says 5.5 million Americans are infected with HPV everyyear, 3 million get chlamydia, 1 million get herpes and and650,000 get gonorrhea.

“Approximately one-fourth of these new infections are inteenagers,” the report reads. It says 42 percent of newinfections are in men who have sex with men.

Most Teenagers Have Sex

Valdiserri said the reality is that most teenagers havesex.

“By the time they are seniors in high school, 65 percent ofAmerican teenagers are sexually experienced,” he said. “We knowthat nearly two-thirds of STDs occur in young people under age25.”

Yet another troubling trend is that gay and bisexual menare seeing a rise in STDs, which put them at higher risk ofcatching and passing on the AIDS virus.

“One of the studies to be discussed at the conference is asurvey of men who have sex with men in the Chicago area,”Valdiserri said. “Forty-three percent, that is almost halfthese men, are unaware of the fact that syphilis can increasethe rate of HIV transmission. That’s pretty shocking.”

STDs also can cause infertility in women and can be passedon to babies in the womb and at birth.