Atleast Danville is ahead on something!

Local STD rates above the norm

Health officials not surprised by reports

BY BARBARA GREENBERG
DANVILLE — Recent headlines announced that at least one in four teenage American girls has a sexually transmitted disease. The statistics were based on a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In response to that study, Vermilion County Health Department Health Education Program Coordinator Linda Bolton said local rates of STDs are much higher than the norm.”

Cathy Hubbard, family planning/STD nurse coordinator for VCHD, agreed. Hubbard, who has worked in the family planning department for the past eight years, said “One in four (teens with STDs) doesn’t sound high to me at all.”

Vermilion County may even exceed those numbers. According to Vermilion County Health Department statistics for the last quarter of 2007, 39.2 percent of local teens between 15- and 19-years old who were tested for STDs were infected.

Karen Schildt, APN, CNM, Carle Clinic-Danville Obstetrics/Gynecology, called the CDC study’s statistics “not surprising.” She attributed the local numbers to “the high percentage of teen sexual activity” in the area.

Sexual activity among teens is nothing new, but the behavior may now result in more than unwanted pregnancies. Sexually transmitted diseases are on the increase among this age group. According to the CDC, about 3.2 million teenage girls are infected with an STD.

Ranging from genital warts to human papillomavirus to HIV/AIDS, these STDs have disastrous and often fatal consequences. The Associated Press reported the risk of both infertility and cancer rises in those infected with STDs.

And those infected are getting younger.

“We have people come to the STD clinic who are 12,” Hubbard said. VCHD provides family planning services to those from 10- to 29-years old.

“Women who come through the family planning clinic and who are under 25 are automatically screened for STDs if they are sexually active,” Hubbard added.

“The problem is the re-infection rate,” she said. “People get tested and get treated, but their partners don’t,” she said. “If we treat someone (for an STD), we ask for the names of their partners. We get about a 50-50 response.

“Those (untreated) partners re-infect them or infect others.”

Micki Crome visits Vermilion County schools to talk about this problem. As VCHD’s associate health educator, she goes to any school that requests her ranging from middle schools/junior highs to Danville Area Community College.

“The group 24-years-old and under is at the highest risk for STDs,” Crome said. “Kids know more about sex than a generation ago, but they also have lots of misin-formation.”

According to the Associated Press, “Some teens define sex as only intercourse, yet other types of intimate behavior including oral sex can spread some diseases.”

Crome said, “A lot of teens are having unprotected sex. They don’t realize the risk (of infection with an STD).

“There’s general ignorance,” she said.