The recent report on infectious diseases in the United States has shown that chlamydia and gonorrhea lead the list of most often reported infectious diseases. Moreover, chlamydia has reached its historical peak with more than one million patients within the last year. Specialists state that this is only just a general picture, while the real number is three times bigger according to unofficial statistics. Such a difference between official and unofficial numbers results from a large number of unreported cases, some of which are even left untreated.

Each year about 19 million of new cases regarding all types of sexually transmitted diseases take place, but only three types of STDs should be reported in national statistics. Genital herpes, papillomavirus and trichomonas diseases comprise the largest part of STDs but they aren't required to be included in the statistics like gonorrhea or chlamydia.

The reasons behind the rise of all three most widespread sexually transmitted diseases are all different, as well as the distribution proportions of infections amongst different population groups. African-Americans are reported to be the most vulnerable population group, with the ratio to Caucasian people being 18 to 1 in case of gonorrhea, 6 to 1 in case of syphilis and 8 to 1 in case of chlamydia. One of the causes behind for such a discrepancy may be contributed by the lack of easy access to quality health assistance, but there are definitely more reasons to that.

The rise in reported cases of STDs is definitely caused by the more sensitive tests applied, that are able to detect chlamydia and gonorrhea tracks at the earliest stage of disease development. Another cause for such a peak is that STD centers urge annual tests for women under the age of 26. Men also display an increase in reported cases because more women ask their partners to undergo STD tests in order to avoid infections.

Still, African-Americans make up 69 percent of all gonorrhea cases in the United States, with the South region being simply plagued by the disease. Doctors do not have an explanation for that yet. Another vulnerable group that was affected by the rise of STDs were gay men.

After the syphilis elimination program was declared in 2000 the overall number of syphilis cases has somewhat declined, but soon it started to grow considerably. And still there's no clear cause for that, with some specialists identifying the lack of budget funding to raise awareness among the population and provide the necessary prevention actions.

Another problem is that the sexually transmitted diseases are currently growing with resistance to common antibiotic treatments. If only a decade ago a single large dose of Penicillin was enough to treat chlamydia, today doctors often prefer using more recent antibiotics like Zithromax to treat STDs. In either case it's far from stating that there's an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases in the United States, and luckily there are effective treatments to address these infections. But still, it's a matter of personal responsibility and awareness to avoid STDs before it's too late.