Tag Archives: Chlamydiae

STD Awareness: The Long Road to a Chlamydia Vaccine

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Earlier this year, television personality John Oliver was the butt of an elaborate prank orchestrated by actor Russell Crowe. It started with an auctioned jock strap, and ended with Crowe funding the John Oliver Koala Chlamydia Ward at the Australia Zoo. If you want the full story, check out the video below (beware explicit language).

Despite Oliver playing it for laughs, koala chlamydia is very real and very serious. At least half of wild koalas are infected with a chlamydia type that’s related to the human version. As in humans, koalas can transmit these bacteria through sexual contact. And, similar to the havoc it wreaks in our species, in koalas chlamydia can cause blindness, urinary tract infections, and female infertility — and can be passed from mother to infant. Along with other factors, chlamydia is said to be responsible for plummeting koala populations in many parts of Australia. Continue reading →

STD Awareness: Is Chlamydia Bad?

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chlamydiaPerhaps your sexual partner has informed you that they have been diagnosed with chlamydia, and you need to get tested, too. Maybe you’ve been notified by the health department that you might have been exposed to chlamydia. And it’s possible that you barely know what chlamydia even is, let alone how much you should be worried about it.

Chlamydia is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) out there, especially among young people. It can be spread by oral, vaginal, and anal sex, particularly when condoms or dental dams were not used correctly or at all. It is often a “silent” infection, meaning that most people with chlamydia don’t experience symptoms — you can’t assume you don’t have it because you feel fine, and you can’t assume your partner doesn’t have it because they look fine. If you’re sexually active, the best way to protect yourself is to know your partner’s STD status and to practice safer sex.

Chlamydia increases risk for HIV, leads to fertility and pregnancy problems, and might increase cancer risk.

The good news about chlamydia is that it’s easy to cure — but first, you need to know you have it! And that’s why it’s important for sexually active people to receive regular STD screening. Left untreated, chlamydia can increase risk of acquiring HIV, can hurt fertility in both males and females, can be harmful during pregnancy, and might even increase risk for a certain type of cancer. So why let it wreak havoc on your body when you could just get tested and take a quick round of antibiotics?

To find out just how seriously you should take chlamydia, let’s answer a few common questions about it.

Can Chlamydia Increase HIV Risk?

Chlamydia does not cause HIV. Chlamydia is caused by a type of bacteria, while HIV is a virus that causes a fatal disease called AIDS. However, many STDs, including chlamydia, can increase risk for an HIV infection, meaning that someone with an untreated chlamydia infection is more likely to be infected with HIV if exposed to the virus. Continue reading →

STD Awareness: Three Sexually Transmitted Bacteria That Will Shock and Amaze You

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It’s hard to appreciate a pubic louse as an intriguing creature in its own right. Not when an infestation with pubic lice is such a vexing experience. The same can be said for the germs that cause any number of human diseases. But, just as you might have marveled at the microorganisms you spied under the microscope in your high school biology class, the bacteria and other microbes that cause sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) can be fascinating, strictly as scientific subjects.

Let’s look at a few of these fascinating bacteria!

Treponema pallidum, the causative agent of syphilis, is seen in this electron micrograph adhering to a surface with the tapered end of its structure. Image obtained from the CDC’s Public Health Image Library.

Image: Public Health Image Library, CDC

Treponema pallidum: the bacteria that cause syphilis

Before the age of antibiotics, syphilis was the most feared STD out there. Untreated, it can cause serious, sometimes fatal, damage to the body, and can also spread to a fetus during pregnancy. But did you know that earlier versions of syphilis might have been even worse?

Written records of syphilis date back to 1495 when it seemed to appear in Europe for the first time. According to a 1519 description, it caused

Boils that stood out like Acorns, from whence issued such filthy stinking Matter, that whosoever came within the Scent, believed himself infected. The Colour of these was of a dark Green and the very Aspect as shocking as the pain itself, which yet was as if the Sick had laid upon a fire.

Interestingly, such descriptions don’t match modern forms of syphilis, which suggests that it might have evolved into a less virulent form, possibly in response to selective pressure against symptoms that render the host sexually unappealing. Basically, that means that someone with boils emitting “filthy stinking Matter” might have trouble find sexual partners; the pustules of yore don’t seem to decorate the epidermis of contemporary sufferers, making them more likely to perpetuate milder forms of syphilis through sexual transmission.

We can’t hop into a time machine and take samples from European syphilitics in 1495, but some biologists believe that it took about 50 years for evolution to work its mojo on the disease, giving rise to the milder Syphilis 2.0 in the mid-1500s. Continue reading →

Over 90 Percent of What Planned Parenthood Does, Part 22: Expedited Partner Therapy for Chlamydia

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200373577-001Welcome to the latest installment of “Over 90 Percent of What Planned Parenthood Does,” a series on Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona’s blog that highlights Planned Parenthood’s diverse array of services — the ones Jon Kyl never knew about.

So, you got chlamydia. It happens. In fact, it happens to an estimated 2.86 million Americans every year, and is the most common bacterial sexually transmitted disease (STD) in the country.

After testing positive for chlamydia, you can receive extra antibiotics to hand-deliver to your partner.

Your infection didn’t come out of thin air — you got it from somewhere. Maybe you have a new sex partner who wasn’t tested and treated for any STDs before you got together. Perhaps you’re in a non-monogamous relationship. You also could have had it for a while before you found out about it, during which time a partner might have unknowingly caught it from you. One reason chlamydia can spread so easily — by vaginal, anal, or oral sex — is because it usually doesn’t come with symptoms. Amazingly, most people with chlamydia don’t know they have it unless they take an STD test to screen for it.

But the fact remains: You got chlamydia. Now what? Continue reading →

STD Awareness: Chlamydia trachomatis

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A colony of C. trachomatis (colored green) is nestled inside a human cell. Image: V. Brinkmann, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology

A colony of C. trachomatis (colored green) is nestled inside a human cell. Image: V. Brinkmann, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology

In the microscopic world of germs, organisms called Chlamydiae are dwarfed by their fellow bacteria. An E. coli bacterium can hang out with 100,000 of its closest friends on the head of a pin, but Chlamydiae are smaller still. Infectious particles are about one-tenth the length of an E. coli, rivaling the size of a large virus. And, just like a virus, Chlamydiae can still pack quite a punch, proving that sometimes, not-so-good things can come in small packages.

There are many types of Chlamydiae bacteria, but one species, Chlamydia trachomatis, is responsible for not one, but two sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in humans: chlamydia and lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV). (Humans aren’t the only ones affected by sexually transmitted Chlamydiae. A different species, Chlamydia pecorum, is devastating wild koalas in Australia, which has got to be one of the biggest bummers ever.)

Chlamydia is a case study for the importance of safer sex and regular STD testing.

Chlamydia is one of the most common STDs in the United States — there were almost 1.5 million diagnoses in 2011 alone, but experts estimate that there were around another 1.5 million cases of chlamydia that went undiagnosed. How can this be? Chlamydia is often a “silent” infection, meaning that symptoms are rare, allowing people to harbor these bacteria without even knowing it. (When symptoms do occur, they might include swelling in the genital region; vaginal, cervical, or penile discharge; or painful urination.)

It might seem like a small mercy that this common infection is unlikely to torture us with harrowing symptoms — but, in actuality, those of us who have to deal with discharge or burning urination should try to appreciate the heads up: Left untreated, chlamydia can cause serious complications. When it spreads along the female reproductive tract, it can cause pelvic inflammatory disease, which can severely compromise fertility and cause chronic pain. Rarely, in a male reproductive tract, it can cause epididymitis, which can also spell bad news for future fertility. Continue reading →