For the first time in 14 years, the number of new infections from sexually transmitted diseases in Minnesota has declined.
The Minnesota Department of Health said Tuesday that new cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis dropped by 5 percent in 2009, a sudden reversal of a trend that has worried public health leaders for years.
Health officials said they could not explain the drop -- or predict whether it's a turning point or a one-year blip. "But we are encouraged by this apparent decrease," said Allison LaPointe, surveillance coordinator for the Minnesota Department of Health.
The decline also represented a puzzling contrast to the sudden 13 percent increase in new HIV cases that the Health Department reported in January. That was the biggest increase in 17 years.
By far the largest decrease was in new cases of gonorrhea. They declined 24 percent from a year ago to 2,302, continuing a trend that has been evident in Minnesota and nationally for a few years. The decrease in new cases was especially large among blacks -- 39 percent.
Peter Carr, head of the STD section for the Health Department, said that aggressive follow-up of sexual partners, testing and treatment might be making a difference.
Syphilis also declined substantially, with new cases dropping from 168 in 2008 to 117 last year. However, that change hides a more troubling problem that goes hand-in-hand with the increase in HIV; the number of people co-infected with syphilis and HIV increased. The presence of syphilis increases the likelihood of HIV infection by two to five times, and most of the new cases were among gay and bisexual men.
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