Apr 2, 2007 6:21 pm US/Central
Number Of North Texas Teens With STDs Rising
by Steve Pickett
DALLAS (CBS 11 News) ―
The numbers are in and they're raising concerns about the message local teenagers may
not be getting about sexually transmitted diseases.
Monday began National Public Health and Safety Awareness Week. In conjunction with the event the Dallas County Health Department released new statistics.
According to numbers children are leading the pack when it comes to sexually transmitted disease infection. CBS 11 News looked at data from the health department and found that thousands of young people, mostly teenagers, are tops in several categories.
In the past year children and teenagers have become the largest age group of people diagnosed with sexually transmitted diseases.
In 2006 there were more than 3,000 diagnosed cases of Chlamydia - that's almost 40-percent of all reported sexually transmitted disease cases in Dallas County. During the same time period there were more than 1,400 teenagers who contracted gonorrhea.
Dallas County public health officials say the numbers add up to a troubling trend. "Within the past two weeks, we've had a new case of syphilis and HIV, both under the age of 14, now that's when it gets scary," said Monica Tunstle-Garrett, Dallas Co. Health Department.
CBS 11 News spoke with a few area teens that didn't seemed surprised by the statistics. "I believe teenagers, this generation, they don't care about protection. They don't care about other people, you know. So that's why they don't use protection," said Jessica Hernandez, El Centro Student. Fellow student Alisha Camp said, "It doesn't surprise me. A lot of people don't believe in protecting themselves, because they don't believe it could happen to them."
Dallas County isn't the only North Texas area with similar statistics. Public health officials in Tarrant County say nearly 3,000 teenagers there have also been diagnosed with sexually transmitted diseases.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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