Gonorrhea declined by 7% nationally. In 2022, Mississippi had the worst rate of the disease in the country. Now the state ranks fifth in the nation for the disease, with a 10% reduction in cases. Chlamydia declined across the state by over 30% from 2022 to 2023.
Dr. Bradley Stoner is the director of the CDC’s division of STD Prevention.
“We're guardedly optimistic because we feel the report shows movement towards a slowing of the epidemic,” Dr. Stoner said. “So we're taking the decline in gonorrhea to mean that our prevention efforts are working around the country.”
Dr. Stoner says providers and health officials taking action at the community level were key to addressing STI disparities.
“There previously had been an unprecedented but temporary infusion of funding into health departments and disease intervention specialist programs after the Covid pandemic,” he said. “The ramping up of partner services, notification and outreach probably also played a role.”
The CDC report was optimistic about certain increases as well. The overall rate of syphilis increased by 1% nationwide after years of double-digit increases. Nationally, primary and secondary syphilis declined by 10% from 2022.
In Mississippi, the number of primary and secondary syphilis cases fell by nearly 3%. However, the cases of babies born with congenital syphilis rose by nearly 80%.
Dr. Thomas Dobbs is dean of the John D. Bower School of Population Health at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
“We have a 40% fatal disease that's almost entirely cured by a single shot of penicillin,” he said. “That speaks to a system issue. We've got to do a better job of getting moms into prenatal care and getting them tested and treated because it's really a simple solution.”
Congenital syphilis cases rose a thousand percent between 2016 and 2022. When a fetus or baby is left untreated for syphilis, it can cause a range of health issues including developmental delays, intellectual disability and stillbirths.
“We have a lot of delayed prenatal care in a lot of counties,” Dr. Dobbs said. “I really think that the majority of women are not getting prenatal care in the first trimester for a whole host of reasons.”
Dr. Dobbs says a lack of health infrastructure and underinvestment could be behind the rise of this disease. Syphilis testing is now required for pregnant people in their first trimester, third trimester, and at delivery as a part of Mississippi’s efforts to prevent congenital syphilis in infants.
