Cases of sexually transmitted diseases are reaching their highest numbers in decades. That’s according to a report released at the Centers for Disease Control conference on STDs this week.
Dr. Lynn Sosa, who is attending the conference in Washington, runs the STD unit at the Connecticut Department of Public Health.
Sosa says the spike in STDs may be because attitudes about sex are changing with dating apps.
“The opportunity to meet someone very quickly online is really kind of changing, not just about sex, but just how we meet people. And I think we are definitely seeing the effects of that.”
Sosa says the CDC data is preliminary for 2017.
In Connecticut, cases of gonorrhea and chlamydia have increased more than 30 percent since 2016.
Sosa says the spike in gonorrhea cases has lead to new treatment recommendations to stop the disease from becoming antibiotic resistant.
“We don’t think that there’s superbugs of gonorrhea, you know, out there right now. That’s something that we’re trying to prevent. And so we’re really in a situation where we can treat gonorrhea and the reasons behind the recommendation right now are preventing the widespread kind of superbugs that we’ve been hearing case reports of from other countries.”
Meanwhile, cases of syphilis have more than quadrupled in Connecticut, with most cases being transferred between men.