Chlamydia

There are more than 25 diseases that are transmitted sexually. Many have serious and costly consequences. Some of the most common and serious STDs include: Chlamydia * Used to Be Called: Non-gonoccocal urethritis. * Cause: Bacteria. * Number Affected: About 4 million new cases each year in the United States. * Infection Rate: Highest among 15- to 19-year-olds, followed by 20- to 24-year-olds. * At Risk: Everyone, but female teens are more likely to be infected because of immature cervix.

Syphilis cases in California jumped 18% from 2010 to 2011, according to new data released by the state Department of Public Health. The data also show a 5% rise in chlamydia cases and 1.5% increase in gonorrhea cases. Public health officials said they were concerned about the rise of all three sexually transmitted diseases because they can lead to even more serious health problems, like infertility and an increased risk of HIV. "The longer people have these infections without being treated the more likely it is they are going to develop a complication that will have both health and financial costs," said Heidi Bauer, chief of the Sexually Transmitted Disease Control Branch for the state public health agency.

A new strain of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea should be enough to scare anyone who's playing the field without full protection. But the worries might not stop there. Like gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis are sexually transmitted diseases that are caused by bacteria. And anytime you have a bacterial disease, there's at least some chance that the germs could eventually find a way to outsmart antibiotics. So what are the odds that chlamydia or syphilis could turn into the next super germs?

Moving to combat rising rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia among young black women in South Los Angeles, county officials launched a new education and testing campaign Monday with some unlikely partners: churches. Pastors and "first ladies" from churches throughout the region are joining an effort to raise awareness of the sexually transmitted diseases and publicize a home testing program. "Nobody wants to talk about it," said Debra Williams, whose husband is the pastor at McCoy Memorial Baptist Church.

As many as one in 20 teenage girls and women, and more than 2% of the general population in America are infected with chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease, U.S. researchers have reported. Pregnant women attending publicly funded clinics and economically disadvantaged youths are especially at risk of the bacterial infection, which can cause serious problems including infertility if untreated, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey found.

Young women risk being infected with chlamydia more than once, researchers reported last week at a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conference in Jacksonville, Fla. Chlamydia is the most common STD among women and, in 70% of cases, causes no symptoms. The bacterial infection can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and infertility. It can also make a woman more likely to be infected with or to pass on the AIDS virus.

Costa Mesa-based ICN Biomedicals Inc. said Wednesday that it has received authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market a new test for the diagnosis of chlamydia, the obscure but perhaps most common sexually transmitted disease in the nation. ICN Biomedicals, a majority-owned subsidiary of ICN Pharmaceuticals, said it will begin selling the test kits to physicians in the United States by the end of the year.

Synbiotics, which previously concentrated on diagnostic tests used in veterinary medicine, has filed a notification with the Food and Drug Administrattion to begin selling a rapid test that will determine the presence of a sexually transmitted disease that affects humans.

A silent epidemic, one that often goes undetected and untreated, is rendering adolescent girls in America sterile, according to Mary Ann Shafer, associate professor of pediatrics at UC San Francisco. The disease is known as chlamydia and it is now thought to be the most common sexually transmitted disease among adolescents, occuring in 8% to 25% of sexually active girls and 9% of sexually active boys.

An unusually virulent form of chlamydia has emerged in the United States, primarily among gay men, after an outbreak in Europe two years ago, federal researchers said Wednesday. There are about 80 confirmed cases in the U.S., but infectious-disease experts fear the actual number is substantially larger because this form of chlamydia is difficult to diagnose and many physicians are not aware of its existence.

A new strain of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea should be enough to scare anyone who's playing the field without full protection. But the worries might not stop there. Like gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis are sexually transmitted diseases that are caused by bacteria. And anytime you have a bacterial disease, there's at least some chance that the germs could eventually find a way to outsmart antibiotics. So what are the odds that chlamydia or syphilis could turn into the next super germs?

Young black and Hispanic women may be screened at higher rates for the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia than young white women, a study finds. The study included 40,000 young women ages 14 to 25, and researchers looked not only at screening rates, but also at what types of health insurance the study participants had. More black and Hispanic young women were tested for chlamydia compared with white young women -- the numbers were 65%, 72% and 45%, respectively. Black young women were 2.7 times as likely and Hispanic women were 9.7 times as likely to be screened for the diseased as their white counterparts Insurance also played a role in who got screened.

The rate of gonorrhea in the United States is at an all-time low, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday, but the rates for chlamydia and syphilis continue to rise.  The three sexually transmitted diseases, orSTDs, together account for about 1.5 million cases annually, less than 10% of the country's estimated 19 million cases. But they are the only ones that must be reported to CDC by doctors because they have such potentially serious consequences. Herpes and human papillomavirus account for the bulk of the remaining STD infections.

Dr. Walter E. Stamm, whose discoveries on the diagnosis and treatment of urinary tract infections and of the relationship between chlamydia and pelvic inflammatory disease saved tens of thousands of women from infertility, died Dec. 14 at his home in Seattle. He was 64 and had been battling melanoma. Stamm "was one of the giants . . . who really transformed diagnosis and treatment of genitourinary infections, particularly those that result in pelvic inflammatory diseases," said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which funded much of his work.

Rates of the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia are climbing in the U.S., and rates of syphilis -- once on the verge of elimination -- rose for the seventh consecutive year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday in its annual report on STDs. Gonorrhea rates did not increase, but they ceased falling a few years ago, frustrating goals set by public health leaders. Chlamydia infections in the United States now top 1.

The number of newly diagnosed cases of the three most common sexually transmitted diseases rose for the second year in a row in the U.S., driven in part by an increase in risky sexual behavior, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday. "Increases in all three of these STDs. . . underscore the need for vigilance," said Dr. John M. Douglas Jr., director of the CDC's division of STD prevention, which produced the report.

Almost one in 10 female U.S. Army recruits are infected with chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease that can lead to infertility and tubal pregnancies, scientists report today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine tested urine samples from 13,204 recruits at Ft. Jackson, S.C. They found that 9.2% of the recruits--women between the ages of 17 and 25--tested positive for chlamydia.

Scientists at UC San Francisco and the Chiron Corp. have taken the first step in development of a vaccine against chlamydia, the most common sexually transmitted disease in this country and a leading cause of blindness in the Third World. The researchers, led by molecular biologist Richard Stephens, have cloned and sequenced the gene for a protein on the surface of the chlamydia bacterium. The protein in turn could become the key ingredient in a vaccine.

Young women risk being infected with chlamydia more than once, researchers reported last week at a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conference in Jacksonville, Fla. Chlamydia is the most common STD among women and, in 70% of cases, causes no symptoms. The bacterial infection can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and infertility. It can also make a woman more likely to be infected with or to pass on the AIDS virus.

An unusually virulent form of chlamydia has emerged in the United States, primarily among gay men, after an outbreak in Europe two years ago, federal researchers said Wednesday. There are about 80 confirmed cases in the U.S., but infectious-disease experts fear the actual number is substantially larger because this form of chlamydia is difficult to diagnose and many physicians are not aware of its existence.