Chlamydia Epidemiology: A Case Study

Introduction The existence of Chlamydia trachomatis has only been acknowledged for a little bit over a century. The microorganism was discovered in 1907 by scientists Ludwig Halberstaedter and Stanislaus von Prowazek when they detected it in scrapings of the conjunctiva of an infected orangutan (Budai, 2007). The duo found that similar microbes were found in humans as well. The affected areas were the urethra of males, cervices of women and the eyes of their infants (Dimitrakov, 2002). Following the discovery of C. trachomatis, scientists began their research on the organism. Through several tests, the microbe was identified as a viral particle due to its diminutive size, obligate intracellular nature and inability to produce energy. However, after scientists began to perform several more analyses, it was discovered that the organism was far more complex than a virus. As a result of realizing that C. trachomatis has RNA and DNA nucleic acids, ribosomes, sensitivity to …show more content…
Over the years, chlamydial infections prevalence has risen. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed reports from the year 1987 to 2006 and the rate has risen from 50.8 to 347.8 per 100,000 people (Sommers, 2011). That is nearly a six hundred percent increase! It is important to remember that this does not account for those who are infected but are unaware because of the common asymptomatic nature of the disease.
There are about 92 million reported cases of the infection worldwide each year. These reports are most significant in India, with seventeen percent occurrence, and in sub-Saharan Africa, with thirteen percent (Sommers, 2011). Moreover, Chlamydia trachomatis infections are the most common sexually transmitted diseases and the most repeated infectious diseases reported in the United States. In the country alone, there are over four million cases reported annually (Fletcher-Janzen,