Highly Contagious STD Rages Out of Control in Alabama

To put it bluntly, messing around in Alabama could get you in a whole lot of trouble.

And in Montgomery County? Double ouch.

According to the Alabama Department of Public Health, syphilis cases in the state went up 40 percent in 2022, AL.com reported.

Montgomery reported 421 cases of syphilis last year, more than double the 204 cases in 2021. That means a county with 5 percent of the state’s population had 14 percent of its 2,926 syphilis cases.

“Montgomery trailed only Jefferson County, which is the most populous county and home to nearly three times as many people as Montgomery,” AL.com reported.

Although the report singled out Montgomery, it noted syphilis was on the rise in 46 of Alabama’s 67 counties. “Seventeen of those counties saw cases at least double, with a handful of smaller counties seeing fivefold increases.”

The spike in syphilis in Alabama was announced two months after the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that nationally, syphilis cases rose 32 percent from 2020 to 2021.

In fact, according to AL.com, 2021 was the country’s worst year for syphilis since 1950, with 5.3 cases for every 10,000 people.

Overall, more than 2.5 million cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis were reported in 2021. All increased from the year before.

Dr. Leandro Mena, director of the CDC’s STD Prevention Division, called the surge an “epidemic” that shows “no signs of slowing.”

Since 2016, cases of gonorrhea and syphilis have risen by 45 percent and 52 percent, respectively, according to Innerbody Research.

According to Innerbody, Memphis, Tennessee, has the highest STD rate in the nation with 1,460 cases per 100,000 people.

After Memphis comes Jackson, Mississippi; Columbia, South Carolina; Baltimore; Philadelphia; New Orleans; Milwaukee; Little Rock, Arkansas; Washington, D.C.; and Norfolk, Virginia.

Innerbody noted that of the 25 cities with the highest STD rates, 14 are in the South. California has the most cities in the top 100 with 13, while Florida has the most in the top 25 with three.

When the data is broken down by race, it shows that “though non-hispanic Black people comprise approximately 12% of the total population of the country, they account for a disproportionate 32% of chlamydia, syphilis, and gonorrhea infections,” Innerbody reported.

The site also had a footnote for the politically minded: Of the 20 cities with the highest STD rates, 16 of them have Democratic mayors.