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Va. (WHSV) -Health officials are keeping an eye on several infectious diseases across Virginia, from respiratory illnesses and foodborne infections to tick-borne diseases and sexually transmitted infections. While some of these illnesses are more common than others, the Virginia Department of Health said knowing how they spread and how to prevent them can help keep you and your family healthy
Rachel Dumene said that, with school starting back up, it’s even more important to pay attention to which diseases could be passed around
“With back to school time happening right now, we can really expect those rates of respiratory illnesses to rise, just because so many people are going to be back in settings where there’s a lot of people gathered indoors for a long amount of time, and that would include things like the flu, COVID-19, and then pertussis.”
In VDH’s most recent studyfrom 2024, these are the top infectious diseases reported in Virginia, with congenital syphilis being one that’s started to make its way up the chart:
- Chlamydia trachomatis infection 74,926 cases
- Gonorrhea 27,262 cases
- Hepatitis C, chronic 8,230 cases
- Campylobacteriosis 4,572 cases
- Syphilis, early 3,762 cases
- Salmonellosis (Salmonella) 3,124 cases
- Hepatitis B, chronic 2,906 cases
- Lyme disease 2,812 cases
- Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) 1,702 cases
- Pertussis (Whooping Cough) 1,654 cases
Congenital syphilis is passed from mother to baby when a woman is pregnant or when she gives birth–then it can also be very harmful for a newborn baby. It can severely affect their health and have really negative impacts. So that’s something that’s rising across the entire state, and we’re seeing very concerning levels of that right now
She said people should consider getting properly screened and treated because it can be prevented
Dumene said there are a lot of different kinds of diseases, which means there are many different symptoms and different ways it can be transmitted
“Obviously, for a respiratory illness, someone coughing or sneezing or having close contact with someone else is going to highly increase the chances of someone else getting sick. There’s other things such as foodborne illness that might not necessarily spread person to person, but could be from one contaminated she said
Dumene said washing your hands, staying vaccinated and properly cleaning your food all play a huge role in keeping yourself and others healthy
“Something that people should always keep in mind for preventing foodborne illness is washing their hands thoroughly when they’re preparing food, keeping meat and produce separate from one another in preparation…as far as measles go, we have seen unfortunately a decrease in vaccination rates across the state, and sometimes pockets of unvaccinated people can be exposed to the illness. And measles is one of the most contagious illnesses that we are aware of, so it spreads very easily,” she said.
The number one infectious disease on the chart is chlamydia in Virginia, with more than 74,000 cases
Dumene said she can’t stress enough the importance of getting tested, especially because some STDs don’t have any symptoms
“There are certain behaviors that carry high inherent risk of spreading disease, such as intravenous drug use or unprotected sex. And there is a program called Harm Reduction, and that primary goal is to mitigate the spread of illness with those high-risk behaviors, such as using condoms. That would be a great example of harm reduction because that helps prevent the spread of STIs between partners,” she said
She said preventing bug bites from ticks and mosquitoes is also important, as it could lead to things like Lyme disease or the dengue virus
“It’s really up to us to use proper prevention strategies to prevent any bug-borne illness from ticks or mosquitoes, and that can include things such as using bug repellent, making sure that you’re not walking around in high brush areas, just tall grass, if you can avoid it, tucking your long pants into long socks so that you can better identify ticks that are crawling on you and get them off of you before they bite you, and then doing thorough tick checks after every time you’re outside,” she said.
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