Sexually Transmitted Disease Toll Is Declining in North Carolina

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services reported recently that new STD infections slightly declined last year, while HIV infections rose. Declines were especially evident in the number of syphilis cases, from 1,101 infections in 2000 to 943 in 2001. Gonorrhea cases declined, though not as steadily as syphilis, to 16,734 in 2001 from 17,996 cases the year before. After an aggressive screening effort against chlamydia, incidence of the STD remained nearly the same at 22,177 infections -- one case more than in 2000.

"If you ask, 'Is there anything different in the way we collected information or whether we are doing less testing,' the answer... is no," said Dr. Peter Leone, medical director at Wake County's STD clinic and assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Medicine. "We're doing more testing, and we have better tests now to find STDs. For syphilis, we're doing [20 to 30 percent] more screenings. . . . So, we really are seeing the downward trend." Leone said.

Of all STD figures reported to the state and federal government, only HIV infections rose. Last year there were 1,601 new cases, compared with 1,467 in 2000. Infant infections dropped from five to a single case, the result of drug interventions that stopped mother-to-child transmission. Leone said that people with syphilis or gonorrhea lesions are at greater risk of spreading and acquiring HIV. With other STDs in decline, Leone is hopeful that HIV may decline, too, in the long term. Stopping the transmission of these diseases is "highly dependent on testing. As the numbers begin to go down, that is not the time to stop testing," Leone said.

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