April 12 (UPI) —<\/span> Cases of some sexually transmitted diseases, or STDs, continued to rise in the United States during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n In 2020, nearly 680,000 cases of gonorrhea were reported nationally, a 10% increase from 2019 levels, the data showed.\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n Nearly 140,000 cases of syphilis were reported across the country in 2020, a 7% bump over 2019 figures, the agency said.<\/p>\n A small part of this rise in syphilis cases was fueled by a 15% increase in reported congenital — or mother-to-newborn — infections, according to the CDC.\n<\/p>\n Nearly 2,200 cases of congenital syphilis were reported nationally in 2020, up from 1,870 in 2019, agency figures showed.<\/p>\n Since 2016, the prevalence of congenital syphilis in the United States has increased by 235%, the CDC said.\n<\/p>\n “The unrelenting momentum of STDs continued as treatment and education services were disrupted” during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of CDC’s National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention said during a call with reporters Tuesday.\n<\/p>\n “Unfortunately, based on early data, we already know some STDs increased in 2021 as well,” he said on the call.<\/p>\n Indeed, the numbers in 2020 reflect an ongoing trend in cases of several STDs that has persisted “for nearly a decade,” according to Mermin.<\/p>\n There is some evidence that there was “some change in sexual behavior in the early part of [2020]” nationally, with declines in STD cases in the early part of the year, when much of the country was under stay-at-home orders to limit the spread of COVID-19, he said.<\/p>\n However, case numbers rebounded at an “alarming” rate in the second half of the year, with many of the reported infections linked with injection-drug use, his colleague, Dr. Leandro Mena, director of CDC’s Division of STD Prevention, said on the Tuesday call.<\/p>\n As part of the ongoing “opioid epidemic,” the United States has seen a rise in injection drug use over the past 20 years, a trend that is expected to continue over the next decade, research suggests.\n<\/p>\n Even what appears to be good news regarding the spread of STDs across the country — a 13% decline in reported cases of chlamydia between 2019 and 2020 — actually may be a reflection of reduced availability of screening services during the pandemic, Mermin said.<\/p>\n Historically, chlamydia has accounted for the largest proportion of reported STDs in the United States, an indication the drop in 2020 may be due to underdiagnosis during the pandemic rather than a reduction in new infections, according to the CDC.<\/p>\n Still, the decline in reported chlamydia cases meant that the number of reported STDs nationally dropped to 2.4 million in 2020 from 2.5 million the year before, the agency said.<\/p>\n More than half of these infections occurred in teens and young adults, who “continue to bear the brunt” of STDs, Mena said.<\/p>\n Several factors likely contributed to the decline in cases, including reduced in-person healthcare services due to the pandemic, and diversion of public health staff from STD work to COVID-19 tasks as well as STD test and laboratory supply shortages, Mermin said.<\/p>\n “COVID-19 strained an already-crumbling public health infrastructure,” he said.<\/p>\n In addition, lapses in health insurance coverage due to unemployment may have also been a factor, he added.\n<\/p>\n “STDs threaten the health of too many people in America,” Mermin said.<\/p>\n “And, there is still lack of quality and stigma-free STD [screening and treatment] services” across the country, he said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The rise in STDs nationally in 2020 is “alarming,” according to researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Photo by Adam Kontor\/Pixabay April 12 (UPI) — Cases of some sexually transmitted diseases, or STDs, continued to rise in the United States during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data released […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1054256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[254,619,2290,7413,5182,5521,7415],"class_list":["post-1054255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-cases","tag-cdc","tag-gonorrhea","tag-nationally","tag-reports","tag-rose","tag-syphilis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1054255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1054255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1054255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1054255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Cases](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Cases-of-gonorrhea-syphilis-rose-nationally-in-2020-CDC-reports.jpg\" "\\"Cases")
\n<\/div>\nThe rise in STDs nationally in 2020 is “alarming,” according to researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Photo by Adam Kontor\/Pixabay<\/p>\n