What you need to know about STDs
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More than half of all people will have an STD/STI at some point in their lifetime.
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Less than half of adults ages 18 to 44 have ever been tested for an STD/STI other than HIV/AIDS.
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Each year, one in four teens contracts an STD/STI.
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One out of 20 people in the United States will get infected with hepatitis B (HBV) some time during their lives. Hepatitis B is 100 times more infectious than HIV.
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Approximately half of HBV infections are transmitted sexually.
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It is estimated that as many as one in five Americans have genital herpes, a lifelong (but manageable) infection, yet up to 90 percent of those with herpes are unaware they have it.
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With more than 50 million adults in the US with genital herpes and up to 1.6 million new infections each year, some estimates suggest that by 2025 up to 40% of all men and half of all women could be
infected.
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Over 6 million people acquire HPV each year, and by age 50, at least 80 percent of women will have acquired genital HPV infection.
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Each year, there are almost 3 million new cases of chlamydia, many ofwhich are in adolescents and young adults.
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About two-thirds of young females believe doctors routinely screen teens for chlamydia. However, only 30% of women 25 and under with commercial health care plans and 45% in Medicaid plans were screened for chlamydia.
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At least 15 percent of all American women who are infertile can attribute it to tubal damage caused by pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) , the result of an untreated STD. Consistent condom use reduces the risk of recurrent PID and related complications: significantly, women who reported
regular use of condoms in one study were 60 percent less likely to become infertile.
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Some studies show that, for those who already have a clinically apparent genital HPV infection, using condoms promotes the regression of HPV lesions in both women and men.
Department of State Health Services releases 2006 STD statistics By Jami Rash and Jaime Gonzalez |
 Photo Courtesy of Google Images |
The Texas Department of State Health Services has released the statistics on sexually transmitted diseases for 2006, the last year which all available data has been studied. The data is divided into public health regions, then by counties.
The data is also divided between caes of HIV/AIDS and other STD’s.
Certain diseases are broken down by public health region while others are broken down by country. The TDSH does not say why certain diseases are looked at statistically differently from others.
As far as HIV/AIDS, public heath region No. 6, which includes
Houston, has 19,877 people living with HIV/AIDS, the most of any region while region
No. 9 has the least with 431people living with the disease. Region No. 9 is located in west central Texas.
Kleberg County is in region No. 11 which ranks fifth out of the 11 regions with 2, 189 people living with HIV/AIDS.
Per capita, region No. 6 leads with 20.2 cases per 100,000 people while region
No. 11 is sixth with 6.8 cases per 100,000 people.
When broken down into counties, Harris County leads with 18,038 people living with the disease. Harris County alone accounts for 90.7 percent of its regions cases.
Kelberg County has 13 people living with the disease so only 0.6 percent of our region’s cases are from Kleberg County.
When attempting to find how colleges and universities are affected by this, it is extremely difficult because not everybody on a campus will go to their university’s wellness center for the testing or diagnosis.
While the TSHS does break down information by race, gender, and sexual orientation. It does not keep track of the person’s educational background.
Also, most schools will not give out that information and will only report to the TSHS.
When attempting to contact the Life & Willness Center at Texas A&M-Kingsville, it is only reported back that screenings are available, but no statistics were available.
| In a national survey of US physicians, fewer than one-third routinely screened patients for STDs/STIs. |  Courtesy of Google Images |
 Courtesy of Google Images |
Consistent condom use provides substantial protection against the acquisition of many STDs, including statistically significant reduction of risk against HIV, chlamydia, gonorrhea,herpes, and syphilis. |
| The estimated total number of people living in the US with a viral STD/STI is over 65 million. |
 Courtesy of Google Images |
Reported chlamydia and gonorrhea cases have only seen minor increases since 2002