Sexually Transmitted Diseases Statistics, NIAID Fact Sheet: NIAID

• In the United States, an estimated 15.3 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) occur each year, at least one-quarter of them among teenagers.¹
  
  
• Of the top 11 reportable diseases in the United States in 1996, five are transmitted sexually (chlamydial infection, gonorrhea, AIDS, syphilis and hepatitis B).²
  
  
• Approximately two-thirds of people who acquire STDs in the United States are younger than 25.^1,3
  
  
• In the United States in 1994, approximately $10 billion was spent on major STDs (other than HIV/AIDS) and their preventable complications. This figure rises to approximately $17 billion if sexually transmitted human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections are included.³
  
  
• Worldwide, an estimated 333 million new cases of four curable STDs (gonorrhea, chlamydial infection, syphilis and trichomoniasis) occurred in 1997.⁴

HIV/AIDS

• As of December 1998, an estimated 33.4 million people worldwide were living with HIV/AIDS. Cumulative AIDS-related deaths worldwide as of December 1997 numbered approximately 13.9 million.⁵
  
  
• In 1997 alone, HIV/AIDS-associated illnesses caused the deaths of approximately 2.5 million people worldwide.⁵
  
  
• In the United States, 641,086 cases of AIDS had been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as of Dec. 31, 1997. Of these people, 390,692 had died by the end of 1997.⁶
  
  
• In 1994, the total cost of sexually transmitted HIV infection in the United States was approximately $6.7 billion.³

Chlamydial Infection

• Infection with Chlamydia trachomatis is the most common bacterial STD in the United States. Three million new cases are estimated to occur annually in this country.¹
  
  
• As many as 85 percent of women with chlamydial infections are asymptomatic; 40 percent of infected men report no symptoms.³
  
  
• In 1997, 526,653 chlamydial infections were reported to the CDC, a case rate of 207 per 100,000 population.⁷
  
  
• In 1994, the total cost of chlamydial infections in the United States was estimated to be $2.0 billion.³
  
  
• Worldwide, an estimated 89 million new chlamydial infections occurred in 1997.⁴
  
  
• If not adequately treated, 20 to 40 percent of women with genital chlamydial infections develop pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), which in turn causes problems such as infertility, ectopic pregnancy and chronic pelvic pain.³

Gonorrhea

• An estimated 650,000 cases of gonorrhea, caused by Neisseria gonorrhoeae, occur annually in the United States.¹
  
  
• In 1997, 324,901 cases of gonorrhea in the United States were reported to the CDC, a case rate of 122/100,000.⁷
  
  
• Approximately 50 percent of N. gonorrhoea infections in women are asymptomatic.³
  
  
• In 1994, costs associated with gonorrhea in the United States totalled an estimated $1.1 billion.³
  
  
• Worldwide, an estimated 62 million new cases of gonorrhea occurred in 1997.⁴
  
  
• If not adequately treated, 10 to 40 percent of women infected with gonorrhea develop PID.³

Pelvic Inflammatory Disease

• At least 1 million cases of PID, an important complication of both gonorrhea and chlamydial infection, occur annually in the United States.³
  
  
• Of all infertile women, at least 15 percent are infertile because of tubal damage caused by PID.³
  
  
• Total costs associated with PID in the United States were estimated to be $6 billion in 1996.⁸
  
  
• Following PID, scarring will cause approximately 20 percent of women to become infertile, 18 percent to develop chronic pelvic pain, and 9 percent to have ectopic pregnancies.⁹

Genital Herpes

• About one in five people in the United States over age 12 – approximately 45 million individuals – are infected with HSV-2, the virus that causes genital herpes.¹⁰
  
  
• Up to 1 million new HSV-2 infections may be transmitted each year in the United States.¹
  
  
• Costs associated with genital herpes totalled approximately $237 million in 1994.³

Hepatitis B

• An estimated 77,000 cases of sexually transmitted hepatitis B infection occur annually in the United States.¹
  
  
• Approximately 750,000 people in the United States are living with sexually acquired hepatitis B infection.¹
  
  
• Costs associated with sexually transmitted hepatitis B in the United States totalled $156 million in 1994.³

Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Infection

• An estimated 20 million people in the United states are infected with HPV, and as many as 5.5 million new infections occur each year.¹
  
  
• Cervical infection with oncogenic types of HPV is associated with more than 80 percent of cases of invasive cervical cancer.¹¹
  
  
• An estimated 13,700 cases of invasive cervical cancer will be diagnosed in the United States in 1998.¹²
  
  
• In 1998, an estimated 4,800 American women will die of cervical cancer.¹²
  
  
• Worldwide, cervical cancer is the second most common cancer among women. More than 425,000 new cases and 195,000 deaths occurred in 1997.⁴
  
  
• In the United States, total costs associated with HPV (excluding HPV-related cervical cancer) were an estimated $3.8 billion in 1994 in the United States.³
  
  
• Total costs associated with HPV-related cervical cancer totalled approximately $737 million in the United States in 1994.³

Syphilis

• An estimated 70,000 sexually transmitted infections with Treponema pallidum, the cause of syphilis, occur each year in the United States.¹
  
  
• Globally, an estimated 12 million new cases of sexually acquired syphilis occurred in 1997.⁴
  
  
• In 1997, 8,550 cases of primary and secondary syphilis in the United States were reported to the CDC, a case rate of 3.2/100,000. ⁷
  
  
• Costs associated with syphilis in the United states totalled an estimated $106 million in 1994.³

Trichomoniasis

• Globally, an estimated 170 million people acquired Trichomonas vaginalis, a sexually transmitted parasite, in 1997.⁴
  
  
• Approximately 5 million cases of trichomoniasis occur annually in the United States.¹

References:

1. American Social Health Association. Sexually Transmitted Diseases in America: How Many Cases and at What Cost? Menlo Park, CA: Kaiser Family Foundation, 1998.
2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Summary of notifiable diseases in the United States, 1996. MMWR 1997;45:1-103.
3. Institute of Medicine. Committee on Prevention and Control of Sexually Transmitted Diseases. The Hidden Epidemic: Confronting Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Eng TR and Butler WT, eds. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1997.
4. World Health Organization. World Health Report 1998. Geneva: WHO, 1998.
5. UNAIDS: Report on the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic, December, 1998.
6. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report 1997;9(no. 2):1-44.
7. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention. Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance, 1997. Atlanta: CDC, 1998.
8. Washington AE and Katz P. Cost of and payment source for pelvic inflammatory disease - trends and projections, 1983 through 2000. JAMA 1991;266(18):2565-69.
9. Westrom L, et al. Pelvic inflammatory disease and fertility. A cohort of 1,844 women with laparoscopically verified disease and 657 control women with normal laparoscopic results. Sex Transm Dis 1992;19:185-92.
10. Fleming DT, et al. Herpes Simplex Virus type 2 in the United States, 1976 to 1994. NEJM 1997;337:1105-11.
11. National Institutes of Health. Consensus Development Statement on Cervical Cancer. Bethesda, Maryland, April 1-3, 1996.
12. American Cancer Society. Cancer Facts and Figures, 1998.

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