There is new disturbing information out about the health of young people between 15 and 24. In a state health department alert that age group is singled out as having a significant increase in sexually transmitted diseases.

They are numbers that are hard to comprehend at a time of social media health and awareness. The younger population is more promiscuous today than probably ever before when Dr. Frank Disenzo saw the alert put out by the State Health Department of Beaver County. He found the numbers quite concerning.

He stated that himself and their practice have seen an uptick in the number of gonorrhea cases and chlamydia cases. The alert says the following  Among 15 to 24 year old men and women.

• Gonorrhea, in particular, was up 34%, last year, compared to 2016.
• HIV is up nearly 3x times.(The HIV rate increased 300% is very concerning)

There is an equal concern in Allegheny County

STD increase in Allegheny County

Dr. Karen hacker at the Health Department says quote “Our incident rates for syphilis chlamydia gonorrhea and HIV have and continue to exceed the state’s incident rates” and quote “I’ve seen high school students that tell me they’ve had you know multiple sexual partners and ladies as young as 14 Is OBGYN practice encourages? Has sexually active patients to be tested? So a patient could have this ongoing for some time and be in the category of no symptoms (with no signs of STD) and spread it to others.

In a survey when asked why people think this is happening to the CMU campus, there were answers like “guess people don’t think it’s that much of a big deal especially with advancements in medical care”. “Lack of responsibility, lack of proper sex education teaching”. “Alack of feeling like comfortable talking to each other about something that you might have”.

Dr. Disenzo says, “in jeopardy a woman’s ability to ever have a child, the good doctor points out the way to avoid these problems in the first place is to use a condom but first, he says young people need to recognize the risk.