sexually transmitted disease

Any disease transmitted by sexual contact, involving transfer of body fluids. STDs include not only traditional venereal disease, but also a growing list of conditions, such as AIDS and scabies, which are known to be spread primarily by sexual contact. Other diseases that are transmitted sexually include viral hepatitis. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are 340 million new cases of curable STDs annually worldwide (1999).

An estimated 12 million people contract a sexually transmitted disease each year in the USA (1998).

US researchers estimated in 1999 that about 3.5 million US women were unaware that they had been at risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases because they wrongly believed their partners were monogamous.