The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) had launched a warning at the beginning of June, inviting people to practice only “safe sex” this summer and to protect their health by also getting tested regularly, since in 2024 there is a “worrying increase in sexually transmitted infections across Europe”. The data are “greatly increasing” also in Italy, reports to Adnkronos Salute the infectious disease specialist Andrea Gori, president of Anlaids Lombardia. “The statistics have been saying it unequivocally for some years now.” “Chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis” are increasing, the expert lists.
Cases of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea
Again for the summer of 2024, the EU agency for infectious diseases returns to the topic and reinforces the message of attention, recalling that a ‘super gonorrhea’ alarm is also detected in the region. In Europe, antibiotic-resistant cases are increasing with a “worrying trend”, explains the ECDC, a crux – that of invulnerability to treatment – which is added to the increase in cases of gonorrhea in general (+48% in 2022 compared to 2021 in the EU/EEA, with the highest notification rate recorded since the beginning of European surveillance in 2009).
HIV is growing
“And then there is HIV, which remains a problem even today,” Gori recalls, even though the numbers are not those of the 1980s. According to the report that is drawn up every year by the AIDS Operations Center (Coa) of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, in 2022 – the most recent data available – new diagnoses of HIV infection were 1,888equal to an incidence of 3.2 new cases per 100,000 residents (below the EU average). After the minimum reached in the year of the pandemic, a slight increase in diagnoses has been observed in the last 2 post-Covid years. And it is not a problem that only affects the very young: the highest incidence is found in the 30-39 age group (7.3 new cases per 100,000 residents) and 25-29 years (6.5 new cases per 100,000 residents). New diagnoses of HIV infection in 2022 mainly concern males, in 78.7% of cases, and the median age is 43 years for him and 41 for her.
As for other sexually transmitted infections, in recent years “constantly increasing in Italy” as in many other countries, Gori highlights, according to the available data published by the ISS the trend remained stable until 2004, then from 2005 and for the entire following decade it increased (+37.4% from 2005 to 2016 compared to the period 1991-2004). In 2021, the latest available data, reports to the surveillance system increased by 17.6% compared to the previous year. The median age of the reported subjects was 32 years: in particular, for women it was 30 years and for men 33.
Going into detail about the type of infection, cases of Chlamydia trachomatis showed an increase after 2008, as stated in the epidemiological focus published by the ISS, with a 4-fold increase between 2008 and 2021. Reports of gonorrhea tripled from 2010 to 2021, reaching a maximum peak in 2021. After 2000, there was an increase in primary and secondary syphilis (I-II), with an increase of about 5 times in 2005 compared to 2000 and a new peak in 2016. From 2016 to 2020, a reduction in cases was first observed and a subsequent peak in 2021, overlapping with that of 2016.
“These are the trends and the official data are obviously greatly underestimated” due to the hidden population, the missed diagnoses, concludes the infectious disease specialist. “And the misinformation of young people on topics considered uncomfortable” by adults “weighs on the budget”.
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