Agnieszka Fedorczyk: Do STDs and sexually transmitted diseases mean the same thing?
Dr. Grzegorz Południewski: The name "venereal diseases" is now obsolete. It has disappeared from the medical vocabulary as too narrow. Years ago, this term referred to just a few diseases, including syphilis, gonorrhea and some protozoan infections, such as vaginal cilia. And these diseases, yes, still exist, but they are no longer as serious a problem as they once were, because today we can treat them effectively and quickly with antibiotics. Currently, diseases that can spread sexually include about 60 conditions.
How did such a plethora of intimate diseases emerge?
Today we know that diseases related to the intimate sphere have many more routes of transmission than classic sexual intercourse. These are largely viral diseases, such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C, vulvar herpes (HSV), HPV, or papillomavirus, HIV and many others. Add to this set of protozoan and bacterial diseases, less common or more difficult to diagnose. They do not always cause acute and characteristic symptoms, and are often chronic. Those who succumb to infection do not know for a long time that they are sick, and infect others. Today we travel a lot and to different parts of the world, eagerly to the Mediterranean countries - Italy, Turkey, Greece, Morocco, Egypt, and there some of these diseases have their own characteristics. Not to mention trips to such remote areas of the world as India, Thailand or Haiti, where sexually transmitted diseases are different.
We have stopped talking about intimate diseases in recent years. Why?
Because this problem has seemingly diminished. Among other things, this is because many of these diseases manage to be effectively treated by fairly simple means. Syphilis, or syphilis, is not a problem these days, because we have effective antibiotics for it. More than one person who has gone to the doctor because of a bronchial or pulmonary infection has been cured of gonorrhea, by the way, with a higher-spectrum antibiotic. Such a person may not even have known he was sick. The bacteria that cause syphilis or gonorrhea still exist and infections still occur, but cases o...
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