As I'm sitting here typing this blog on my computer, eating my bowl of generic brand Fruity Pebbles, and listening to the latest Radiohead album, pretty much the last thing going through my mind is that I could possibly die from an STD like AIDS or Syphilis. This is most likely because I consider myself an asexual (read: virgin) (read: raging virgin), but also in a large part due to the fact that due to the culture in which I live, with easy and for the most part affordable access to health care, and my ability to pay for said health care, STDs just aren't that big of a worry for many Americans. Sure there are more serious STDs like AIDS or Herpes which can be fatal and/or last your entire life, but we also have numerous prevention methods available to us as well. However things are much different in the disadvantaged parts of the world.
In the poorer parts of the world, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia, STDs run rampant. Unlike us in America, the people in these places don't have access to cheap health care, or even much health care at all. Furthermore, education about these diseases isn't widespread because disadvantaged countries can't afford it, so people are spreading them unknowingly and if they do get them, they can't do much about it. Even STDs that are easily treatable and considered a mere nuisance in America, like chlamydia or gonorrhea, are considerable problems in poorer countries passing untreated from person to person and resulting in birth and fertility problems from prolonged exposure. Even worse, with the lack of education, people in disadvantaged countries lack access to preventative measures like condoms. So even if they knew about STDs, they couldn't do much about it, other than being totally abstinent, and we all know that isn't going to happen. So, unless everyone in the third world becomes socially repressed nerds who spend all day playing Dungeons and Dragons, a lot of sex is going to happen and STDs are going to be spread.
Similar events happen in poor areas and disadvantaged population in wealth countries too. In the Southern United States, particularly in poor Black communities. Health care access may be suspect in these areas, or if available, the people there may not be able to afford it. Large cities can act as breeding grounds for STDs. Individuals may also lack education, or be mistrusting of the health care community for wrongs committed in the past (e.g. the Tuskegee study).
In any case, problems with STDs stem from a lack of money and until money starts to flow into poorer areas, things aren't going to get much better for the foreseeable future.
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