Chlamydia Cases Rising

Chlamydia is an infection that oftentimes shows no symptoms to its carrier, but that can cause infertility in females. Health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention point to better and more frequent testing as the reason why there were over 1.1 million reported cases of chlamydia in 2007 alone, the highest it has ever been. According to the director of the STD Prevention division of the CDC, Dr. John M. Douglas Jr., almost 15,000 women each year become infertile due to not getting proper and timely treatment for infections from gonorrhea or chlamydia. In terms of other sexually transmitted diseases, syphilis cases rose slightly and gonorrhea cases did not budge from previous years. Syphilis can oftentimes be fatal, if not treated properly; gonorrhea and chlamydia, however, are not fatal infections.

A professor of infectious diseases at John Hopkins University, Dr. Jonathan Zenilman, agrees with the CDC that increasing the number of screenings and tests for these sexually transmitted diseases is causing the spike in cases reported. He states, “The issue with chlamydia is the more tests, the more you’ll find.” Chlamydia cases are normally found in women; in fact, the rate of chlamydia is three times higher for females than males. Many believe that this is largely due to government recommendations in the early 1990s that women who are under the age 25 and who are sexually active should be persuaded by their health practitioners to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases.

According to data released by the National Committee for Quality Assurance, between the years 2003 and 2007, the number of women who got tested for chlamydia rose dramatically. In fact from 2006 to 2007, the number of cases rose approximately 7.5 percent. In fact, health officials speculate that close to 2.8 million Americans (both male and female) get infected with chlamydia every year; however, because it is often devoid of dramatic symptoms, many do not get tested. Some common symptoms include a burning sensation during urination or, for women, stomach pains.

Currently, there are over 350,000 cases of gonorrhea in the United States and approximately 11,000 cases of syphilis. A decade ago, it was thought that syphilis would be eliminated from the United States, but cases, especially those amongst men who are gay or bisexual, have been slowly creeping up.