STD Rates Reach Record High

The rise of sexually transmitted diseases is challenging public health departments.

When Fredrick Echols joined the St. Louis County Department of Public Health as director of communicable disease control services a couple of years ago, he did an assessment of the county’s sexually transmitted disease (STD) program. It wasn’t hard to see where things could be improved. “I saw some gaps in services,” Echols says, “particularly in the community.”

Echols is referring to the fact that the county had made almost no effort to involve community members in a conversation about safe sex. The absence of a discussion has contributed in part to its distinction for more than a decade as home to the nation’s highest rate of STD infections. The number of chlamydia cases in St. Louis County increased by more than 500 in 2016, gonorrhea cases were up by 1,300 and syphilis cases also spiked, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

But what’s particularly troubling is that St. Louis County isn’t alone. With more than 2 million cases reported in 2016, STD rates nationwide are at a record high. “STDs are a persistent enemy, growing in number and outpacing our ability to respond,” Jonathan Mermin, director of the CDC division that deals with STD tracking and prevention, said in a press release accompanying a September report on the issue.

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