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Question: What is Chlamydia?- We answer the question and provide detailed information on this STD.

Question: What is Chlamydia?

Answer: Chlamydia is a common sexually transmitted disease that affects over 3 million Americans each year. Approximately three out of four cases of chlamydia occur in people under age 25. By the time women reach age 30, an overwhelming 50 percent of sexually active women are likely to have had chlamydia. Although chlamydia is a serious disease that is easily treated with antibiotics, it often has no or only mild symptoms. Women with undiagnosed chlamydia often suffer reproductive health consequences such as damage to the uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes.

Chlamydia (Chlamydia trachomatis) is a bacterium that causes an infection that is very similar to gonorrhea in the way that it is spread and the symptoms it produces. It is common and affects approximately 4 million women annually. Like gonorrhea, the chlamydia bacterium is found in the cervix and urethra and can live in the throat or rectum. Both infected men and infected women frequently lack symptoms of chlamydia infection. Thus, these individuals can unknowingly spread the infection to others. Another strain (type) of Chlamydia trachomatis, which can be distinguished in specialized laboratories, causes the STD known as lymphogranuloma venereum.

What are the symptoms of chlamydia?

The majority of women with chlamydia do not have symptoms. Cervicitis (infection of the uterine cervix) is the most common manifestation of the infection. While about half of women with chlamydial cervicitis have no symptoms, others may experience vaginal discharge or abdominal pain. Infection of the urethra is often associated with chlamydial infection of the cervix. Women with infection of the urethra (urethritis) have the typical symptoms of a urinary tract infection, including pain upon urination and the frequent and urgent need to urinate.

Chlamydia is very destructive to the Fallopian tubes. It can also cause severe pelvic infection. If untreated, about 30% of women with chlamydia will develop pelvic inflammatory disease. Symptoms of pelvic infection include fever, pelvic cramping, abdominal pain, or pain with intercourse. Pelvic infection can lead to difficulty in becoming pregnant or even sterility. Occasionally, if the infection is severe enough, a localized area of infection and pus (an abscess) forms, and major surgery may be necessary and even lifesaving.

Because it is common for infected women to have no symptoms, chlamydial infection is often untreated and results in extensive destruction of the Fallopian tubes, fertility problems and tubal pregnancy.

Chlamydial infection, like gonorrhea, is associated with an increased incidence of premature births. In addition, the infant can acquire the infection during passage through the infected birth canal, leading to serious eye damage or pneumonia. For this reason, all newborns are treated with eye drops containing an antibiotic that kills chlamydia. Treatment of all newborns is routine because of the large number of infected women without symptoms and the dire consequences of chlamydial eye infection to the newborn.

What is the treatment for chlamydia?

Treatment of chlamydia involves antibiotics. A convenient single-dose therapy for chlamydia is 1 gm of azithromycin (Zithromax, Zmax) by mouth. Alternative treatments are often used, however, because of the high cost of this medication. The most common alternative treatment is a 100 mg oral dose of doxycycline (Vibramycin, Oracea, Adoxa, Atridox and others) twice per day for seven days. Unlike gonorrhea, there has been little, if any, resistance of chlamydia to currently used antibiotics. There are many other antibiotics that also have been effective against chlamydia. As with gonorrhea, a condom or other protective barrier prevents the spread of the infection.