Cook County Crawling With STDs
Only one county in the entire country has more cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia per capita than Cook County.
A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows Cook County had 915 reported case of syphilis in 2015, 11,082 of gonorrhea and 39,539 of chlamydia. That’s a lot of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia.
The only county with more cases of the three sexually transmitted diseases per capita is Los Angeles County.
Per 100,000 population, Illinois had the 11th most reported cases of syphilis, 15th most cases of gonorrhea and 11th most cases of chlamydia among the 50 states. Louisiana had the most syphilis and gonorrhea per 100,000 population. Alaska ranked first for chlamydia.
The CDC also focused on the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin area and determined the number of reported cases of syphilis climbed by more than 1,500 from 2011 to 2015. In that same time period, gonorrhea cases increased as well, but by less than 400. There were nearly 5,000 more chlamydia cases in that time for that area.
But it’s not all bad in Cook County. Those 915 cases of syphilis in Cook equal 17.4 per 100,000 population. Not great, sure, but definitely way better than the 45.2 in Fulton County, Georgia, or the 60.5 in San Francisco County. And the City of St. Louis alone has nearly three times the cases of gonorrhea per 100,000 population than all of Cook County combined. St. Louis also has an awful lot more cases of chlamydia per 100,000 population than Cook County.
Cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia are all up nationwide, according to the CDC. From 2014 to 2015, syphilis cases increased by 19 percent, gonorrhea rose 12.8 percent and chlamydia went up 5.9 percent.
Photo via the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
