Sexually transmitted diseases

Rates of sexually transmitted diseases There are more than 20 sexually transmitted diseases. The most common include syphilis, gonorrhea, HIV, chlamydia, herpes and hepatitis B. In North Carolina, the HIV rate among American Indians is about twice that of the white population. Among blacks, the rate is 10 times the rate of the white population. It is the only communicable disease listed to decrease among whites and the general population, yet increase among blacks. In North Carolina, the STD rate among American Indians is four times that of the white population. Among blacks, the rate is 10 times the rate of the white population. HIV/AIDS was the leading cause of death among black North Carolinians between the ages of 15 and 44 during the late 1990s. Black females were more than 16 times as likely to die of AIDS as white females. In the late 1990s, the incidence rate of gonorrhea and syphilis was 25 times higher among blacks than whites in North Carolina. Increased education and treatment had reduced that to 10 times greater in 2003. In Cumberland County, the incidence rate for HIV/AIDS and gonorrhea was 10 times as high among blacks as among whites in 2003. The rate was 1.6 times as high for syphilis. The number of cases of gonorrhea reported in Cumberland County have remained fairly constant since 1997: from 1,036 cases to 1,055. The number of chlamydia cases have more than doubled, from 1,138 to 2,657. Two-thirds of those infected with chlamydia in Cumberland County were between the ages of 20 and 29. Sixty-three percent were black, and 28 percent were white. Statistically, the most likely person to have gonorrhea in Cumberland County is a black male in his early 20s. The most likely person to have syphilis is a black male in his mid- to late 30s. STDs on the rise Large population, increased testing might contribute to higher numbers in Boone County * Chlamydia is the most frequently reported infectious disease in the U.S. It is a sexually transmitted bacterial infection caused by the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis, which can damage a woman’s reproductive organs. * Symptoms of chlamydia are usually mild or absent but can cause irreversible damage, such as pelvic inflammatory disease, which can cause permanent damage to the fallopian tubes, uterus and surrounding tissues, or infertility in women. GONORRHEA * Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted disease caused by Neisseria gonorrhoeae, a bacterium that can grow and multiply easily in the warm, moist areas of the reproductive tract and in the urethra of men and women. In women, gonorrhea is a common cause of pelvic inflammatory disease. In men, it can cause epididymitis, a painful condition of the testicles that can lead to infertility if left untreated. Gonorrhea can spread to the blood or joints, a condition that is life-threatening. SYPHILIS * Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by the bacterium Treponema pallidum. Many of the signs and symptoms of syphilis are indistinguishable from those of other diseases. It is passed from one person to another through direct contact with a syphilis sore. * Many people infected with syphilis do not have any symptoms for years, but they are still at risk for complications. There are several stages of syphilis, including primary, secondary, latent and late. The primary stage of syphilis is usually marked by the appearance of a single sore, but there may be more than one. It appears at the spot where syphilis entered the body and goes away without treatment. The second stage starts with the development of a rash on one or more areas of the body. The rash is sometimes so faint is goes unnoticed or resembles rashes caused by other diseases. The signs and symptoms of secondary syphilis will resolve with or without treatment, but without treatment, the infection will progress to the latent and late stages of disease. The latent stage is where there are no symptoms, but the infection is still present in the body. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention WHAT DO I DO IF I THINK I HAVE AN STD? * Contact the Columbia/Boone County Health Department Clinic at 874-7355 and make an appointment. All services and treatments are free. The clinic is located at 1005 W. Worley St. and is open from 8 a.m to 5 p.m. * There is an STD clinic on Tuesdays from 5 to 7 p.m., but the clinic will perform tests for STDs during regular hours as well. Gonorrhea and chlamydia rates in Boone County are higher than rates for Missouri and the nation as a whole. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services’ 2004 profile of HIV and STDs in Missouri shows that one in 185 Boone County residents reported a case of chlamydia and one in 599 reported a case of gonorrhea. For both diseases, 95.4 percent of Boone County cases were reported in Columbia. “The numbers are higher in Columbia because of the population and because the city/county health department and testing center is here,” said Bill Monroe, the regional HIV consulting and testing coordinator. Monroe said the testing center sees patients from all over the county. Missouri ranked 10th in the nation for gonorrhea and chlamydia rates, according to numbers released in November by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rates were taken from cases reported in 2004. Boone County’s chlamydia rate has been steadily increasing since 2000 along with the state and national rate. The national rise is attributed to the expansion of testing efforts and the fact that tests for chlamydia have become better at detecting the disease, said Jennifer Ruth of the CDC. Although the national gonorrhea rate has decreased since 2000, Boone County’s rate has increased. “The (national) decline could be due to shifts in testing patterns, less gonorrhea testing, or a real decrease in the number of new cases,” Ruth said. The CDC ranked Missouri 25th in syphilis cases last year. The state’s rate for the disease has fluctuated since 2000. There were fewer than five cases of syphilis reported in Boone County in 2004, according to the state health department. The Columbia/Boone County Health Department’s data for January through October 2005 shows there have been 205 cases of gonorrhea, 622 of chlamydia and fewer than five of syphilis reported in the county. The statistics provided from various sources may not provide figures for all STDs because some are not considered reportable diseases, said Lynn Fair, a women’s nurse practitioner at the health department clinic. For example, herpes and genital warts are no longer considered reportable diseases, which means testing centers do not report cases to the CDC or health departments. “Reportable diseases, in general, cause more damage and there is more of a risk of passing it to the fetus,” Fair said. Fair, who has been at the health department for 14 years, said the clinic sees about 40 people during its STD clinic, which is held Tuesday evenings from 5 to 7 p.m. Fair stressed that the STD clinic is for high-risk cases only. A high-risk case involves someone who has multiple sex partners and does not use protection or has experienced symptoms. The clinic’s services are free, and patients can make an appointment for STD testing at any time. Advocating condom usage to teens can be dangerous Question: If you were a parent and knew your son or daughter was thinking about engaging in sexual intercourse, wouldn't you talk to them about condom usage? If our kids are going to have sex anyway, shouldn't we make sure they are properly protected? Dr. Dobson: I would not, because that approach has unintended consequences. By recommending condom usage to teenagers we inevitably convey five dangerous ideas: (1) that "safe sex" is achievable; (2) that everybody is doing it; (3) that responsible adults expect them to do it; (4) that it's a good thing; and (5) that their peers know they know these things, breeding promiscuity. Those are very destructive messages to give our kids. Furthermore, Planned Parenthood's own data show the No. 1 reason teenagers engage in intercourse is peer pressure! Therefore, anything we do to imply that "everybody is doing it" results in more -- not fewer -- teens who give the game a try. What I'm saying is our condom distribution programs do not reduce the number of kids exposed to the disease -- they radically increase it! And consider this: Research indicates where disease prevention is concerned, the failure rate of condoms is incredibly high, perhaps 50 percent or greater. Condoms also fail to protect against some STDs that are transmitted from areas not covered (the base of the male genitalia, for example). After 25 years of teaching safe-sex ideology, and more than 2 billion federal dollars invested in selling this notion, we have a medical disaster on our hands. More than 500,000 cases of herpes occur annually, and the number of reported cases of chlamydia has risen 281 percent since 1987. Forty-six percent of chlamydia cases occur in teenage girls ages 15 to 19. In addition, there are now more than 24 million cases of HPV (human papilloma virus) in the United States, with a higher prevalence among teens. Having acknowledged these problems, why in the world would I recommend this so-called "solution" to my son or daughter? Look at it this way. Suppose my kids were skydivers whose parachutes had been demonstrated to fail 50 percent of the time. Would I suggest they simply buckle the chutes tighter? Certainly not. I would say, "Please don't jump. Your life is at stake!" How could I, as a loving father, do less? I should add that, despite the popular myth to the contrary, teens can understand, accept and implement the abstinence message. It's not true young people are sexual robots, hopelessly incapable of controlling their own behavior. As a matter of fact, almost 50 percent of all high school students are virgins today, even though hardly anybody has told them it is a good thing. These kids desperately need to be affirmed in their decision and held up as positive examples for others. None of this will be accomplished by pushing condoms. Question: I read in the paper that a 14-year-old boy shot a woman in the face for no reason at all. Things like that are happening all around us. When I was a kid I wouldn't even have sassed a teacher, much less assaulted one. Today the level of violence among the young is like nothing I've ever seen! Please comment on this. Dr. Dobson: You are right, an epidemic of violence is occurring among the young that is expected to actually worsen in the next few years. During a meeting of Prison Fellowship workers in our city, a group of hardened former criminals said the kids growing up today scare them because they have no consciences. They can kill without a hint of remorse. It is true. In Seattle a few years ago, two boys, 12 and 13, beat to death a person coming out of a convenience store. There was no motive except a desire to brutalize someone - anyone - with a baseball bat. In Virginia, a 14-year-old shot the driver of a nearby car six times in the face. Why? "Because he looked at me," the boy said. In Los Angeles, a family made a wrong turn down a street and was subjected to a hail of gunfire that killed their little girl. Gang members poured bullets into the car for the sheer fun of it. And finally, who can forget the 5-year-old Chicago boy who was pushed from an upper-story window and fell to his death. His killers were 10 and 11 years old. This kind of random violence is more common among children and adolescents today than ever before in our history. Electronic Card: You've Got An STD True love thrives on the Internet, many lonely hearts have met their matches in chat rooms. "We met in a chat room" is as common a phrase as "we met in a bar." At my place of employment I know of three married couples that met online, there is no longer a stigma to admitting you met your partner in the world of cyber space. But the Net is not just for pure hearts in search of romance, it's also for horn dogs in search of a one-night stand. The Internet is becoming an increasingly common place to arrange a sexual liaison, and often the only thing partners know about each other is an e-mail address. If after a night of wild passion a Casanova discovers that he has come down with an STD, often the only way he can deliver this bad news to his partner is via an e-mail. The Los Angeles County Health Department has set up a Web site, www.inSpotLA.org/, which allows Don Juans to inform their lovers that they have been exposed to an STD. Featured on the site is a selection of electronic greeting cards with many cute ways of saying: You may have been exposed to a venereal disease. I'd rather a lady simply blurt out that she may have exposed me to a disease, than receive a cheery electronic card saying: Roses are red, Violets are blue, You may have syphilis and herpes too. But hey, whatever works. There are electronic greeting cards for every occasion, why not one to inform your one-night stand that he/she should be tested for an STD? Folks tend to be very blunt when expressing themselves via e-mail, critics have responded to my essays by sending me e-mails calling me everything but a child of God. Some passionate Romeos turn into shrinking violets when it comes to disclosing embarrassing information in person, e-mail is a good means of relaying unpleasant news. If you receive an electronic card announcing that you may have an STD, after you get over the embarrassment -- get tested immediately.