Abstract
Background: Prevention and control of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are major public health priorities in China, but are influenced by the COVID-19 epidemic. In this study, we aimed to quantitatively explore the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic and its control measures on five major STD epidemics in China.Methods: A monthly number of newly reported cases of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B and C, gonorrhea, and syphilis from January 2010 to December 2020 were extracted to establish autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models. Each month's absolute percentage error (APE) between the actual value and model-predicted value of each STD in 2020 was calculated to evaluate the influence of the COVID-19 epidemic on the STDs. Pearson correlation analysis was conducted to explore the confirmed COVID-19 case numbers and the COVID-19 control measures' correlations with the case numbers and the APEs of five STDs in 2020.Results: The actual number of five STDs in China was more than 50% lower than the predicted number in the early days of the COVID-19 epidemic, especially in February. Among them, the actual number of cases of hepatitis C, gonorrhea, and syphilis in February 2020 was more than 100% lower than the predicted number (APE was −102.3, −109.0, and −100.4%, respectively). After the sharply declines of STDs' reported cases in early 2020, the case numbers recovered quickly after March. The epidemic of STDs was negatively associated with the COVID-19 epidemic and its control measures, especially for restrictions on gathering size, close public transport, and stay-at-home requirements (p < 0.05).Conclusion: COVID-19 had a significant but temporary influence on the STD epidemic in China. The effective control of COVID-19 is vital for STD prevention. STD services need to be improved to prevent STDs from becoming a secluded corner in the shadow of COVID-19.
Highlights
The pandemic of COVID-19 has brought great challenges to the world, and up to now, the number of COVID-19 cases has exceeded 130 million worldwide, involving more than 200 countries and regions [1]
A total of 40 kinds of notifiable infectious diseases are monitored by this system, among which there are five kinds of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), such as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, gonorrhea, and syphilis [14]
Via comparing the actual and predicted number of cases of five STDs in 2020, it showed that the actual case numbers of the five STDs in the early period of the COVID-19 epidemic in China were more than 50% lower than the predicted number, especially in February 2020 (Figure 1; Table 2; Supplementary Figure 1; Supplementary Table 2)
Summary
The pandemic of COVID-19 has brought great challenges to the world, and up to now, the number of COVID-19 cases has exceeded 130 million worldwide, involving more than 200 countries and regions [1]. The previous studies had shown that the containment and closure policies were of great value for effective control of COVID-19’s spread [3]. These measures that were aimed at COVID-19 prevention and control had impacts on the daily prevention and control work of other infectious diseases, especially for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Prevention and control of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are major public health priorities in China, but are influenced by the COVID-19 epidemic. We aimed to quantitatively explore the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic and its control measures on five major STD epidemics in China
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