Health : Sexual Health in the US, 2010
There is nothing sexy about syphilis, but unfortunately, sexually transmitted infections are a concern for all men who have sex with men, and syphilis is one of the infections that we must be aware of.
There were about 34,000 cases of syphilis in the United States in 2010 (all stages) with men who have sex with men contracting syphilis at much higher rates than heterosexual men.
Syphilis is passed from person to person through direct contact with a syphilis sore. Sores occur mainly on the external genitals, vagina, anus, or in the rectum. Sores also can occur on the lips and in the mouth. If the infection has not been treated, the secondary stage of syphilis will usually occur from 3 to 6 weeks after the appearance of chancres.
Wondering where the rates in your state are? The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has released the Syphilis Profiles for 2010. This document provides an overview of syphilis in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. The data has been collected by state and local health departments and submitted to the CDC.
Syphilis has been tracked by the CDC since 1941 when the number of cases was around 600,000.
Most individuals that test positive for syphilis are tested somewhere other than an STD clinic and the majority of cases are in the south.
Data on other STDs is also available from the CDC.
Stephan
This article almost doesnt sound right. Those numbers seem kinda low. I went and got tested at a health dist. office and that place was full of str8 hispanics getting tested. Not to mention i wouldnt trust the health dist reports at all considering i was with a friend when the guy at the health district told him that he was no longer HIV pos that the doxycycline that they gave him cured his HIV and Syph. And when my friend asked again they assured him that he was now hiv neg.
What this little tidbit doesn’t tell you is that a person who is HIV Positive and also has Syphilis is 10 times more likely to spread HIV to others via Syphilis.
The little chancre sores that Syphilis creates burst and the blood and pus that oozes from them contains larger than normal amounts of HIV, because the virus thrives in pus (white blood cells).
The same is true with regard to Gonorrhea and Chlamydia. Anytime pus (white blood cells) are present, the risk for HIV transmission is heightened considerably.
Just shows the agencies can’t come together and really don’t know what they are doing. All are operating on dogma and government funding.