For Immediate Release
Contact: Matthew Prior, mprior@ncsddc.org, 202-715-7215

Washington, D.C. – The National Coalition of STD Directors (NCSD) is encouraged by the Fiscal Year 2019 health appropriation bills coming out of the Senate and House. These bills level fund the CDC/STD prevention funding line and bolster the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention with an additional $20 million in the House bill and $5 million in the Senate bill. As Congress moves to conference these bills, NCSD strongly encourages Congress to recognize the link between the opioid epidemic and STDs.

Nationally, STDs are at all-time highs and continue to increase by the year, with an estimated 20 million infections in 2017 burdening the nation $16 billion in health care costs. These trends are marked by worrisome trends in life-threatening infections like congenital syphilis. The most current data show that over 20 percent of syphilis cases among women have been tied to drug use, including use of opioids — up from just over 5 percent in 2012. This rise in drug-use-associated syphilis among women mirrors the over 90 percent increase in congenital syphilis cases in this same time period.

As a nation, the rise in congenital syphilis is a scourge resulting from an under-resourced and under-staffed public health system that is failing to protect mothers and babies from this easily preventable infection. Untreated, congenital syphilis leads to stillbirth or early infant death in up to 40 percent of cases.

“We cannot ignore the link between rising drug and opioid use and STDs. These epidemics are interwoven, and we look to Congress to ensure that any plan to address infectious diseases tied to the opioid epidemic must include STD prevention and treatment,” says David C. Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors.