School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing, China.
Taiyuan Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Taiyuan, China.
Front Public Health. 2021 Dec 16;9:737817. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.737817. eCollection 2021.
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. 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. 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 ( < 0.05). 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.
预防和控制艾滋病病毒/艾滋病和其他性传播疾病（性病）是中国的主要公共卫生重点，但受到 COVID-19 疫情的影响。在这项研究中，我们旨在定量探讨 COVID-19 疫情及其控制措施对中国五大性病流行的影响。从 2010 年 1 月至 2020 年 12 月，提取了艾滋病病毒/艾滋病、乙型和丙型肝炎、淋病和梅毒每月新报告病例数，建立自回归综合移动平均（ARIMA）模型。计算了 2020 年每个 STD 模型预测值与实际值之间的每月绝对百分比误差（APE），以评估 COVID-19 疫情对 STD 的影响。进行 Pearson 相关分析，以探讨 2020 年确诊的 COVID-19 病例数以及 COVID-19 控制措施与五种 STD 病例数和 APE 的相关性。中国五种 STD 的实际病例数比 COVID-19 疫情早期的预测病例数低 50%以上，尤其是在 2 月。其中，2020 年 2 月丙型肝炎、淋病和梅毒的实际病例数比预测病例数低 100%以上（APE 分别为-102.3%、-109.0%和-100.4%）。2020 年初 STD 报告病例急剧下降后，病例数在 3 月后迅速恢复。性传播疾病疫情与 COVID-19 疫情及其控制措施呈负相关，尤其是对聚会规模限制、关闭公共交通和居家要求（<0.05）。COVID-19 对中国性病流行产生了重大但暂时的影响。有效控制 COVID-19 对性病预防至关重要。需要改善性病服务，以防止性病成为 COVID-19 阴影下的一个死角。
