One Million People Contract These New STIs Every Day, Study Says

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Each day across the globe, about 1 million sexually active people between the ages of 15 and 49 contract a case of either chlamydia, gonorrhea, trichomoniasis or syphilis, according to a new publication by an international team of epidemiologists.

The incidence of the four sexually transmitted infections (STIs) “remain high,” according to the paper, published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.

“The global estimates of prevalence and incidence of four curable sexually transmitted infections are important in the broader global context, highlighting a continuing public health challenge,” the WHO report said.

The estimates for chlamydia, gonorrhea and trich were reached by a meta-analysis of prevalence studies conducted between 2009 and 2016. The 130 studies provided data points that were then refined through a Bayesian probability statistical approach (Markov Chain Monte Carlo equations through software called BRrugs in R Package), according to the paper.

The syphilis estimates were based on the WHO’s often-used maternal prevalence estimates in a statistical trend model called Spectrum-STI. More than 1500 data points from surveys produced guidelines for 181 of the 205 nations.

The results: a global total of 376.4 million new curable infections with the four STIs over the course of 2016, they conclude. That includes: 156 million trich cases, 127 million chlamydia infections, 87 million gonorrhea cases and 6.3 million syphilis infections.

Trich is caused by a parasite, and the other three are bacterial. All four can be treated and cured if caught early enough. However, syphilis has presented challenges since there are shortages in the world’s supply of benzathine penicillin, a key medication. Gonorrhea also poses challenges, since the germs’ increasing microbial resistance has been tracked by scientists in recent years.

These latest numbers are substantially similar to estimates based on the year 2012, they conclude.

These updates are a baseline monitoring program to determine the progress of the Global Health Sector Strategy on STIs, a venture announced in 2016 that has set a target to “end STIs as a public health concern by 2030.”


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