Chlamydia Sets US Record For Most Cases Of Reportable Disease

Barbara Hollingsworth cnsnews.com A total of 1,422,976 new cases of Chlamydia trachomatis were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2012, “the largest number of reported cases for any notifiable disease in the U.S.," a CDC spokeswoman told CNSNews.com. A list of the National Notifiable Infectious Conditions that are reported by 57 state and territorial jurisdictions can be found on CDC'swebsite. Approximately 110 million Americans – more than a third of the entire U.S. population - were infected with a sexually transmitted disease (STD) as of 2008, the latest date for which figures are available, the CDC spokeswoman confirmed. That includes more than a million Americans living with HIV. CDC estimates that nearly 20 million new STD cases are contracted annually, including gonorrhea (334,826 new cases reported in 2012), HIV (47,500 new cases reported in 2010), and primary and secondary syphilis (15,667 new cases in 2012). They cost the nation nearly $16 billion in health care costs annually. Young people aged 15 to 24 account for 50 percent of all new venereal infections even though they make up just 25 percent of the sexually active population, the CDC notes. “STDs are hidden epidemics of enormous health and economic consequence in the United States,” the health agency stated in its annual “Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance 2012” report, which was released in January. But “the annual surveillance report captures only a fraction of the true burden” of STDs in America because other common venereal diseases such as human papillomavirus (HPV), herpes, and trichomoniasis are not routinely reported to the agency, the CDC spokeswoman confirmed. to read more: cnsnews.com