County STD Cases Rise
Wausau Daily Herald
Rick LaFrombois
DECEMBER 14, 2003
Cases of sexually transmitted diseases continue to rise in Marathon County, Wisconsin although they remain below state and national rates. Area health care providers do not know with certainty why reports of STDs - specifically chlamydia and gonorrhea - are on the rise, but they suggest that diminished fear of HIV/AIDS has led some people to engage in riskier sex. They also point to a mobile population that carries STDs into and out of the area, and they emphasize a need for more aggressive prevention and testing education.
In 2002, 264 chlamydia cases were reported, an increase of 126 percent from 117 in 1998. There were 58 reported cases of gonorrhea in 2002 compared to 7 cases in 1998, a 729 percent increase.
Julie Willems Van Dijk, health officer for Marathon County, said people of all ages, genders, sexual orientations and income levels contract STDs. "And it's something we don't talk about a lot, so when people read about the rising STDs, they have a stereotype of who that is - teenagers, drug users, prostitutes," she said. "It could be all those people, but it could be your neighbor, your kid or your spouse."
Marathon County health data does not indicate which groups of people experienced the largest increases in STDs, but it will in 2004 when the department gets a new data analysis system, Willems Van Dijk said.
Lou Newman, executive director of Family Planning Health Services, said the majority of the chlamydia cases reported in his Wausau clinic - 34 in 2002 and 66 this year - were white females. Newman said the clinic, funded mainly by federal and state dollars, began offering fee waivers this year for reproductive health care for women and children. Men can get tested and treated for STDs for a fee.