Gonorrhea Decline Reverses; Cases Up 9 Percent

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Gonorrhea Decline Reverses; Cases Up 9 Percent

Washington Post (www.washingtonpost.com) (12/06/00) P. A3
Brown, David

New statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the incidence of gonorrhea is on the rise in the United States for the first time in more than two decades. After dropping nearly 75 percent between 1975 and 1996, the gonorrhea rate rose 9 percent between 1997 and 1999. According to the CDC's Ronald O. Valdiserri, the increase can be attributed, in part, to better tests and more widespread screening. However, he said that the rise may also be the result of better AIDS treatments, which could have resulted in some people mistakenly believing "that high-risk sexual behavior no longer carries the extreme consequences it once did." The new surge was first observed among high-risk gay men, and it appears to be extending to the general population; but it is still highly concentrated among certain regions, races, and age groups. While the national rate of gonorrhea infection is 133 cases per 100,000 people, the rate for African Americans is 849 cases per 100,000; for Hispanics, 75 per 100,000; and for whites, 28 per 100,000. Cities in the mid-Atlantic and South have particularly high rates of infection, and Baltimore came in at No. 1, with 949 cases per 100,000. Other findings presented at the sexually transmitted disease (STD) conference in Milwaukee show that the nation's syphilis cases are continuing to fall. The rate of infection is 2.5 cases per 100,000, and 79 percent of the country's 3,115 counties reported no new cases in 1999. Last year, No. 1 Indianapolis' rate was 50 cases per 100,000, while third- ranked Baltimore had 38 cases per 100,000--down from 102 syphilis cases per 100,000 in 1997. The CDC also reported that chlamydia is more common than both gonorrhea and syphilis, with 254 cases per 100,000 last year. The CDC's Dr. Judith Wasserheit noted, however, that the incidence "grossly underestimates the true burden of [the disease] in this country." Human papillomavirus, meanwhile, is the most prevalent STD, and one strain, HPV-16, is responsible for about half of all cervical cancers.
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