U.S. Chlamydia Infections Hit All-Time High

(Page 2)

"We'd like to see these rates going down," Berman added. "That they are not going down says there should be greater awareness by the public and maybe a little more attention paid both by the public and their providers."

The data are included in the new CDC report: Trends in Reportable Sexually Transmitted Diseases in the United States, 2006.

Chlamydia is the most common reportable infectious disease in the United States, according to the report, with more than a million cases reported in 2006. In 2006, the national rate of reported chlamydia was 347.8 cases per 100,000 people. That's an increase of 5.6 percent from 2005, officials said.

Young women 15 to 19 had the highest chlamydia rate, Douglas said. "The CDC recommends that all women under 26 be screened for chlamydia annually," he added.

The increase appears to be due to more screening and the use of more sensitive tests. But the CDC doesn't rule out an actual increase in infections, Douglas noted.

Gonorrhea is the second most commonly reported infectious disease in the United States, with 358,366 cases reported in 2006, the report found. The rate for gonorrhea in 2006 was 120.9 cases per 100,000 people -- that's a 5.5 increase since 2005, and the second year in which a bump in new cases was seen, he said.

The highest rates of gonorrhea were observed in the South, Douglas said, but they also increased in the West. In addition, gonorrhea is becoming resistant to some antibiotics, he said. For that reason, the CDC no longer recommends drugs called fluoroquinolones for treating the disease, he said.

The increase in cases of gonorrhea is disheartening, because it comes after a 74 percent drop in reported cases between 1975 and 1997, the CDC noted.

Both gonorrhea and chlamydia are underreported and underdiagnosed, the experts said. "Approximately twice as many new infections are estimated to occur each year as are reported," according to the CDC.

Since reaching a record low in 2000, the rate of new syphilis cases has been on the rise. From 2005 to 2006, the rate of syphilis increased 13.8 percent, to 3.3 cases per 100,000 people. In 2006, there were 9,756 cases of syphilis reported, up from 8,724 in 2006, Douglas said.