A long trend of sexually transmitted diseases before and after the COVID-19 pandemic in China (2010–21)

Aifang Xu; Zhongbao Zuo; Chunli Yang; Fei Ye; Miaochan Wang; Jing Wu; Chengjing Tao; Yunhao Xun; Zhaoyi Li; Shourong Liu; Jinsong Huang

doi:10.1071/SH22172

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

A long trend of sexually transmitted diseases before and after the COVID-19 pandemic in China (2010–21)

Aifang Xu ^A ^# , Zhongbao Zuo ^A ^# , Chunli Yang ^B ^# , Fei Ye ^C , Miaochan Wang ^A , Jing Wu ^A , Chengjing Tao ^D , Yunhao Xun ^E , Zhaoyi Li ^F , Shourong Liu ^E and Jinsong Huang

^E ^*

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Department of Clinical Laboratory, Hangzhou Xixi Hospital, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310023, China.

^B Department of Clinical Laboratory, The 903rd Hospital of PLA, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310013, China.

^C Health Examination Center, Hangzhou Xixi Hospital, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310023, China.

^D Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Hangzhou Xixi Hospital, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310023, China.

^E Department of Hepatology, Hangzhou Xixi Hospital, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310023, China.

^F Science and Education Department, Hangzhou Xixi Hospital, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310023, China.

^* Correspondence to: huangjinsong20@163.com

Handling Editor: Huachun Zou

Sexual Health - https://doi.org/10.1071/SH22172
Submitted: 12 October 2022 Accepted: 4 August 2023 Published online: 29 August 2023

© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Background: The longer ongoing benefits of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in China are still unclear. We aimed to explore the changes in five STDs (AIDS, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, gonorrhoea, and syphilis) before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China, from 2010 to 2021.

Methods: The number of the monthly reported cases of the five STDs were extracted from the website to construct the Joinpoint regression and autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models. Eight indicators reflecting NPIs were chosen from the COVID-19 Government Response Tracker system. The STDs and eight indicators were used to establish the Multivariable generalised linear model (GLM) to calculate the incidence rate ratios (IRRs).

Results: With the exception of hepatitis B, the other four STDs (AIDS, hepatitis C, gonorrhoea, and syphilis) had a positive average annual percent change over the past 12 years. All the ARIMA models had passed the Ljung–Box test, and the predicted data fit well with the data from 2010 to 2019. All five STDs were significantly reduced in 2020 compared with 2019, with significant estimated IRRs ranging from 0.88 to 0.92. In the GLM, using data for the years 2020 (February–December) and 2021, the IRRs were not significant after adjusting for the eight indicators in multivariate analysis.

Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that the incidence of the five STDs decreased rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. A recovery of STDs in 2021 was found to occur compared with that in 2020, but the rising trend disappeared after adjusting for the NPIs. Our study demonstrated that NPIs have an effect on STDs, but the relaxation of NPI usage might lead to a resurgence.

Keywords: AIDS, COVID-19, epidemiology, gonorrhoea, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, non-pharmaceutical interventions, sexually transmitted diseases, syphilis.

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