Private MD News

Missouri men urged to get STD tests

Category: Sexually Transmitted Diseases

The Springfield-Greene county health department is encouraging men to get tested for STDs, as part of their National Men's Health Week program.

Green county had a major spike in STD rates in 2007, according to KSPR news, and while the rates declined somewhat in 2008, they remain high.
In Missouri, men made up 82 percent of new cases of HIV in 2008.

"People don't want to talk about these conditions - they don't want to talk about prevention," said Clay Goddard, the assistant administrator of the health department. "They don't understand prevention and they don't understand what happens when they go to a clinic, so that may be a barrier to them getting tested and you can't have that kind of barrier."

The county health department says chlamydia is the most-reported STD, although all are problematic considering the stigma attached to STDs. The county maintains a program encouraging STD testing and treatment, with a focus on education about prevention to break the chain of infection.

There were more chlamydia infections in the U.S. in 2007 than ever before previously recorded, according to the CDC. The 2008 data is not yet available.