Alaska said cases of sexually transmitted diseases increases (Reuters)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Alaska a nation the highest rate of infection chlamydia and gonorrhea rate ranked second as sexually transmitted diseases spread in rural areas, according to the Division of public health of Alaska.

A case 6,026 total bacterial disease chlamydia infection have been reported in Alaska in 2010, an increase of 13% in the previous year. The rate of 849 per 100,000 inhabitants of Alaska is more than twice the national rate of 417, said the Department.

Reported cases of gonorrhea were $ 1,273 in 2010, an increase of 23% and the counter to a national trend of reduced gonococcal infection, said the State. Rate of Alaska was 179 per 100,000 population, compared to a national rate of 99.

Rates partly reflect the demographics of Alaska, according to the program Coordinator Susan Jones, HIV and sexually transmitted diseases in the State.

"The burden of chlamydia and gonorrhea is in the young population," said Jones. "Alaska on average has a population of young compared to most States."

Diseases are also common among ethnic minorities. Rural areas of the State with the worst rates of infection were in large part of the indigenous peoples of Alaska, she said.

No treatment in a timely manner in these rural areas adds to the problem, said Jones.

The Medical Council of Alaska has recently adopted a change of rule allowing physicians to prescribe medicine for sexual partners of infected patients, even if these partners are not examined, she said.

Chlamydia infections increase nationwide, but not as dramatically as in Alaska, Jones said, because the symptoms are less alarming or noticeable to those infected.

"Probably 85 percent of people who have chlamydia will know never it," said Jones.

Even without symptoms, chlamydia can have serious consequences, including pelvic inflammatory disease leading to infertility in women, Jones, said.

"It is not a benign infection," she said.

(Edition by Dan Whitcomb and Peter Bohan)

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Test gets almost of cases of syphilis of 1 to 5 bad (AP)

The ATLANTA - hundreds of people may have learned that they tested positive for syphilis when they had not really the disease, health authorities say.

A study of five laboratories U.S. shows approximately 18% of the positive results of a method of test used since the 1980s have summer actually negative, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

Experts believed the statistics was much lower - less than 7%.

The CDC recommends that additional tests when this test gives a positive result. But even though most physicians in retest, new research suggests that some people have unnecessarily worried that they have been infected with a sexually transmissible disease sadly famous.

There is also some patients received unnecessary treatment - probably the penicillin, which can have side effects.

Syphilis screening is recommended for all pregnant women and people considered at high risk for sexually transmitted diseases.

But officials of the CDC said it is not clear how widely used the problematic test method is more traditional versus, another.

Test problem, which is less expensive than the alternative, has an advantage: "He don't miss people who are infected," said Dr. Karen Hoover, a CDC epidemiologist who co-author of the study.

But it is not perfect to distinguish in the blood of antibodies to syphilis of other proteins, which means that sometimes gives a result positive for something other than syphilis, said scientists at the CDC.

Only about 14,000 Americans were most contagious forms of syphilis, but the number has increased in recent years. 14 000 Cases are those whose symptoms are confirmed with care, so the conclusion of the new study does not affect this count.

Hoover research is published this week in CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

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