Despite widespread lockdowns and quarantine orders, the first year of the covid-19 pandemic did not stop Americans from spreading sexually transmitted diseases. This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released their latest data on STDs, showing that 2.4 million cases of the most worrying STDs were reported in 2020. There were record high levels of both gonorrhea and syphilis, including life-threatening cases of congenital syphilis in infants. However, chlamydia cases have declined slightly. The CDC STD Surveillance Program primarily monitors the incidence of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia based on cases that need to be reported by local doctors and hospitals (HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C cases are also monitored, but separately). The 2020 figures were released as part of the CDC STD Awareness Week, now in its third year. The 2.4 million cases reported in 2020 is a slight drop from the more than 2.5 million cases reported in 2019, which represented the sixth consecutive year of all time. But this decline was observed only for chlamydia, as reported cases decreased from 1.8 million in 2019 to 1.6 million in 2020. Gonorrhea cases increased from 616,392 in 2019 to 677,769 cases in 2020, while syphilis cases increased from 29,319 to 29,319 to 29,311. 2020 — both of the highest numbers observed in the US since the start of modern monitoring. The CDC notes that health care visits for STD screening declined sharply during the first months of the pandemic in March and April 2020, calling into question the decline in chlamydia cases. While these STDs are treated with antibiotics, people often have no symptoms, so regular checkups are necessary to prevent the serious complications that come with them. If left untreated, chlamydia and gonorrhea can permanently damage the reproductive system, causing infertility, while syphilis can remain dormant for years before reappearing causing severe organ damage and even dementia. All three infections can also be dangerous during pregnancy, especially syphilis. The incidence of congenital syphilis in particular has increased in recent years, with more than 2,100 cases in 2020. During pregnancy or childbirth, syphilis can spread between mother and child and become a life-threatening infection. In 2020, at least 149 congenital stillbirths and syphilis-related infant deaths were reported. Nearly half of those cases could have been identified with early antenatal care and screening, says the CDC. And the situation does not look better lately, with the first data showing that syphilis cases continued to increase in 2021. Gonorrhea is another catastrophe as the rate of antibiotic resistant infections continues to rise. The CDC estimates that about half of all infections by 2020 were resistant to at least one antibiotic. In late 2020, the CDC changed its treatment guidelines for gonorrhea, recommending that simple cases be treated with a single vaccine of the antibiotic ceftriaxone, which still shows efficacy against almost all infections, at least for now. It is possible that the pandemic will continue to complicate efforts to prevent, monitor and treat these infections. But even before Covid-19 appeared, the US had lost ground to the SMN. And it will take a long time to reduce those numbers, warns the CDC. “The Covid-19 pandemic has raised awareness of a reality we have long known about STDs. “Social and economic factors – such as poverty and health insurance – create barriers, increase health risks and often lead to worse health outcomes for some people,” said Leandro Mena, CDC Prevention Director at the CDC. for 2020. data. “If we want to make lasting progress against STDs in this country, we need to understand the systems that create inequalities and work with partners to change them. “No one can be left behind.”
