Rates of STDs rising among gay men

For the sixth year in a row the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found an increase in reported cases of syphilis. New national surveillance data released by the CDC Nov. 13 suggests that new infections in men who have sex with men (MSM) are driving the overall increase in infections. The surveillance data also found increases over the past year in the general population of new cases of gonorrhea and chlamydia, and among MSM there was a 10 percent jump in the number of new gonorrhea cases that were drug resistant.

Over the past five years the CDC has seen the rates of reported syphilis infections increase among MSM by 54 percent, and the growing gap between case rates among men and women has led public health officials to conclude that MSM may be responsible for the overall increase in new infections. In 2005 the CDC began collecting data on the gender of the sex partners of people diagnosed with syphilis, and for 2006 they found that 64 percent of syphilis cases were among MSM.

During a telephone press conference Dr. John Douglas, director of the CDC's Division of Sexually Transmitted Disease Prevention, said that in response to the increase in syphilis cases the CDC altered its strategies last year to combat the disease, including increased outreach to the gay and bi male community.

"In an effort to combat the resurgence of syphilis, CDC updated its national plan to eliminate syphilis in 2006 and has been working with partners across the country to both accelerate earlier progress in combating syphilis among African Americans and women and also to fight the resurgence among MSM," explained Douglas. "New strategies include more careful targeting of public health activity to the most affected population as well as innovative approaches to reaching MSM in a variety of settings, such as through the Internet and bath houses, bookstores, as well as HIV testing sites, to name a few."

The surveillance data from 2006 also revealed a continuing increase in drug-resistant cases of gonorrhea as a whole, with a particularly large increase among gay and bi men. Between 2005 and 2006 the percentage of MSM diagnosed with gonorrhea whose infection was resistant to fluoroquinolones, one of the primary antibiotics used to treat gonorrhea, increased from 29 to 39 percent. Among the heterosexual population diagnosed with gonorrhea the incidence of resistant cases rose from 3.8 to 7 percent. In 2004 the CDC recommended discontinuing using fluoroquinolones to treat gonorrhea in MSM, and this year the CDC extended that recommendation to include treatment of all cases of gonorrhea.