Sexuality Transmitted Diseases (STDs)

Now that so many of our bacterial diseases have been conquered or tamed by antibiotics, it is ironic that one of our most common types of infectious diseases is one that is predominantly bacterial in origin. These are the sexuality transmitted diseases, or STDs and they are not totally responsive to antibiotics. STDs are infectious diseases that are almost always transmitted during sexual intercourse, homosexual relations, or other sexual activity. Syphilis, gonorrhea, and herpes simplex virus type 2 are by far most prevalent chancroid, granuloma inguinale, lymphogranuloma venetreum, trichomaniasis (protozoa), and moniliasis (fungus). Many STDs have very serious consequences, and individuals usually cannot develop immunity to them. Nor does having one STDs prevalent to individual from catching another at the same time.

In the late 1950s, after a decade of being kept under reasonable control through antibiotics, these diseases began to increase dramatically, and today they are widespread. In most communities gonorrhea cases alone outnumber all other reported infectious diseases combined. Since 1973, the reported cases have leveled off at about 1 million per year. Recent trends seem to show that reported cases are decreasing slightly through time (990,864 cases in 1981), but many cases continue to go unreported. One in every fifty teenagers will contract gonorrhea. At least half of all reported cases in the United States occur among those age twenty four, and particularly among those in their late teens.