Chlamydia

Baltimore health officials hope they will be able to help stem the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in Baltimore with a novel program passed by Maryland lawmakers. The three-year pilot project approved by the General Assembly would permit doctors to give patients with gonorrhea and chlamydia antibiotics for themselves and their sexual partners, even if they haven't been treated by medical personnel. "The governor has said he will sign it," said Sasha Leonhardt, a spokesman for the governor.

After Wednesday's report that chlamydia has reached epidemic status among teens, people may have questions about the sexually transmitted disease. The report, stemming from a three-year study by the Johns Hopkins University of 3,200 Baltimore youths aged 12 to 19, called for twice-a-year testing for sexually active adolescents.Here, some common questions about chlamydia are answered by Dr. Helene Gayle, director of the National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention, a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other experts:What causes chlamydia?

Investigating the quiet epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases among teen-agers, researchers say that adolescent girls and boys who have sex need to be screened twice as often as doctors thought for the most common infection, chlamydia.The recommendation, published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, stems from a three-year Johns Hopkins University study of about 3,200 Baltimore teens ages 12 to 19, mostly girls. Roughly a third of them tested positive for chlamydia, a finding that confirms smaller studies.

PHILADELPHIA - Federally funded screening programs are beginning to reduce the prevalence of chlamydia, the most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States and a major cause of female infertility, federal statistics show.The Middle Atlantic region saw chlamydia infection decline by nearly a third among women under 20 between 1994 and 1996. The number of women who had the disease fell from 7.8 percent to 5.4 percent.In Philadelphia, infection showed an even more dramatic decline of 40 percent during the same period.

My girlfriend told me that once you get chlamydia you can't get rid of it and it makes you sterile. I'm a 16-year-old girl and had chlamydia about a year ago. Am I sterile?Your girlfriend is confusing chlamydia infection with some of its complications. We will try to straighten this out for you.Chlamydia trachomatis (usually referred to as chlamydia) is a germ that is transmitted through sexual intercourse. It is one of the two most common sexually transmitted infections in the United States and is most common among teen-agers and people in their early 20s.At first, chlamydia infects the cervix, which is the part of the female genitals that separates the vagina from the uterus (womb)

True love waits. Teens hear that message of abstinence more and more today. To drive it home, parents and teachers often emphasize the scariest potential consequences of sexual activity -- pregnancy or AIDS.Those exhortations and warnings will be heard again this weekend when an expected 500 area Baptists meet in Towson for a "True Love Waits" conference, a national movement to encourage teens to sign sexual abstinence pledges as part of their commitment to God.But alongside AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases often take a back seat in such discussions.

One of the best sports for couples who like to exercise together is riding a tandem bicycle. You can't ride away from your better half, no matter how much more you could beat him or her in a race.A fit bicycle rider spins the pedals 80 to 90 times a minute. A beginner may spin them at half that rate.When you ride a tandem, both of you spin at the faster cadence, and both can get a good workout.The person who puts the most pressure on the pedals does the most work.So, even though one of you may be doing twice the work, you both can work near your limit.

In Howard County, an eighth-grade class explores the ABCs of whether condoms always prevent the spread of AIDS.At a student workshop in Baltimore, middle-school girls practice ways of saying "no" that won't cost them their boyfriends.Elsewhere in the city, children act out scenarios that illustrate the connection between intravenous drug use, sex and HIV infection.As of March 31, 3,710 people in Maryland have died from AIDS, including 2,302 in the Baltimore metropolitan area. And with the onset of this sexually transmitted epidemic, sexual relations, once talked about only among family or friends, have become a matter of public health.

Many premature births and other costly complications of childbirth might be avoided if all pregnant women were treated with antibiotics for chlamydia, the nation's most common sexually transmitted disease, according to a computerized cost analysis by a team of University of Maryland scientists.Treating all women as if they were infected could reduce the average cost of childbirth and its complications by $2,700, a savings 10 times greater than if doctors treated only those women who tested positive, the study found.

Many premature births and other costly complications of childbirth might be avoided if all pregnant women were treated with antibiotics for chlamydia, the nation's most common sexually transmitted disease, according to a computerized cost analysis by a team of University of Maryland scientists.Treating all women as if they were infected could reduce the average cost of childbirth and its complications by $2,700, a savings 10 times greater than if doctors treated only those women who tested positive, the study found.

WASHINGTON - Maryland ranked in the Top 20 states for a second year with the highest rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea and placed fourth for syphilis, according to the latest data from the Maryland health department. "We've been hovering in the top five [for syphilis] for the past few years," said Barbara Conrad, sexually transmitted disease prevention division chief for the Maryland Health Department, who expects 2008 data in the next month. Maryland ranked fifth for primary and secondary syphilis, second for congenital syphilis, 14th for chlamydia and 18th for gonorrhea in 2006.

Baltimore City health officials say a pilot program that allows people with sexually transmitted diseases to distribute antibiotics to their sexual partners appears to be working. Using three months of data, officials found that among patients with gonorrhea and chlamydia who visited two city health clinics and received extra antibiotics for their partners, the reinfection rate was 2.3 percent. That compares to a historical three-month reinfection rate of 3.9 percent, making the decrease 41 percent.

I asked my pharmacist what to do with outdated prescription medicines and was shocked when he said "flush." I didn't, of course. Instead, I put them in a container of water to dissolve, out of reach of my cat. Then, I spread out several sheets of newspaper and "painted" the resulting sludge all over them. After they dried, I tore them up and put them in the trash. Was this a safe way to dispose of them? Your pharmacist was misguided when he suggested flushing pills down the toilet. There is growing concern about pharmaceutical contamination of the water supply.

Drought linked to fish deaths An explosion of toxic algae that led to at least 15 fish kills in the Chesapeake Bay was the result of this summer's drought, a University of Maryland scientist said. Shootings by police on the rise As homicides and shootings have soared in Baltimore this year, so has the number of people shot by city police officers: 24 since January, compared with 15 in 2006 and eight in 2004. Chlamydia cases soar in state Reported chlamydia cases in Maryland jumped by 57 percent from 1997 to 2006, and one state health official called it "the tip of the iceberg" for the often symptomless sexually transmitted disease.

Reported chlamydia cases in Maryland jumped by 57 percent from 1997 to 2006, and one state health official called it "the tip of the iceberg" for the often symptomless sexually transmitted disease. Diagnosed chlamydia cases increased in all but Talbot County, and the rate per capita grew in all but Talbot and Worcester counties, according to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. But state and local health officials attribute the increase largely to improved screening methods. "To me, chlamydia is one of these tip-of-the-iceberg things," said Barbara Conrad, the state health department's director of the sexually transmitted diseases program.

Baltimore health officials hope they will be able to help stem the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in Baltimore with a novel program passed by Maryland lawmakers. The three-year pilot project approved by the General Assembly would permit doctors to give patients with gonorrhea and chlamydia antibiotics for themselves and their sexual partners, even if they haven't been treated by medical personnel. "The governor has said he will sign it," said Sasha Leonhardt, a spokesman for the governor.

Bill limits legislators' scholarship power Legislators would no longer be able to award scholarships to their relatives or to the families of their colleagues under a bill passed by the state Senate yesterday. Members of the General Assembly get about $11 million a year to distribute in scholarships to college students, a system that has been subject to frequent criticism from government watchdog groups, who accuse lawmakers of using the money to reward friends or buy votes. The bill passed 39-8, with some senators saying the measure was a misguided attempt to legislate common sense.

Battling high rates of sexually transmitted diseases, Baltimore health officials want authority to send patients home with medication that their partners would use, even though the partners hadn't seen a doctor or been prescribed the drugs. Baltimore Health Commissioner Joshua M. Sharfstein is seeking legislation in Annapolis for a five-year pilot project. Acknowledging that the approach is a "little unconventional," he said it would help cut cases of gonorrhea and chlamydia. Medical personnel in city clinics treat patients for gonorrhea and chlamydia and send them home with a "partner notification card" asking the partner to come in for treatment.

Chlamydia, the most common sexually transmitted disease in the U.S., infects about 2.2 percent of young American adults, 10 times the rate of gonorrhea, according to the first national study of the disease's impact, which was presented in Amsterdam yesterday. The disease can cause sterility. About 4.6 percent of American women from ages 14 to 19 were infected, the highest rate for any age group, said John Douglas, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's sexually transmitted disease prevention programs.

Maryland women who want to be screened for two sexually transmitted diseases can now do it at home instead of traipsing to the doctor's office for an uncomfortable pelvic exam, under a pilot program led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The study, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, offers free kits from local pharmacies that allow women to test themselves for chlamydia and gonorrhea, then send a sample back to a Hopkins lab in a postage-paid envelope.