Four metro Atlanta counties rank among the highest in the nation for cases of certain sexually transmitted diseases, according to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The ranking released late last week breaks down the nation's 70 counties with the highest number of cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis. The study used public and private studies.
Among men, the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell metropolitan area had the third-highest number of early syphilis cases with 1,036 reports. There were 61 women who had the infection.
Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, Gwinnett counties all appeared in top 70 when it comes to syphilis nationwide.
Here's how the counties fared on multiple STDs:
There were 82 reported cases of syphilis in 2015. Based on population statistics from that year, that means 11 people per 100,000 have syphilis. That puts the county at 60th nationwide.
A total of 309 cases of syphilis put the county at 13th place in the country with 42 cases per 100,000 people. It ranked just above the county where Las Vegas sits. That also means DeKalb had more reported cases than Orange County in California and Dallas County in Texas.
DeKalb also had 1,210 cases of gonorrhea meaning 167 people out of 100,000 folks in the county have the infection.
With 450 instances, the county has the seventh-highest number of syphilis reports in the country, beating out counties that contain the Bronx and Philadelphia.
The county comes in at No. 54 for chlamydia cases nationwide with 4,990 reports. That comes to 500 people per 100,000 residents.
And the county's 2,244 gonorrhea infections places it at the 34th spot.
With 98 syphilis infections, the county ranks nationally at No. 51.
Georgia ranks sixth among the country for most chlamydia cases with 57,639. The state's 15,982 gonorrhea cases puts it at seventh place.
And Georgia had the second-most cases of early-stage syphilis with 1,413 cases — or 15 infected people per 100,000.
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