Chlamydia is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the United States. This infection is easy to spread because it often causes no symptoms and can be passed unknowingly to sexual partners. Chlamydia progresses mainly during oral, vaginal, or anal sexual contact with your partner. In fact, approximately 75% of infections in women and 50% in men are asymptomatic. New chlamydia infections outnumber any other sexually transmitted disease. Some estimate that the actual incidence could be as high as 6 million new cases per year. For every case reported in men, more than five cases are detected in women. The low rates in men suggest that many sexual partners of women with chlamydia go undiagnosed or reported. Chlamydial infections of the lower reproductive tract are usually mild or asymptomatic. How do I know if I have chlamydia? It is not easy to tell if you have been infected with chlamydia since the symptoms are not always obvious. However, when they do occur, they are usually noticed within one to three weeks of contact and may include the following: A couple of symptoms in women are abnormal vaginal discharge that may have an odor, bleeding between periods, painful periods, abdominal pain with fever and pain during sexual intercourse. Chlamydia infections can also increase the chance of premature births and stillbirths. If a newborn is exposed to chlamydia during birth, pneumonia or an eye infection may occur. A couple of symptoms in men are small amounts of clear or cloudy discharge from the tip of the penis and painful urination. If you have chlamydia you can get it treated. Your doctor may prescribe appropriate oral antibiotics to treat chlamydia for anyone who has gonorrhea, because… halfway through the article… it is an infection of the uterus and fallopian tubes. It also often affects the ovaries. Whatever is responsible for the infection usually travels into the uterus from the vagina or uterus. It can also cause tissue scarring. A known cause of pelvic inflammatory disease is due to a sexually transmitted infection; it moves towards the person you are having sexual intercourse with. Chlamydia and gonorrhea are the most common causes of pelvic inflammatory disease. Finally, chlamydia trachomatis is a bacterial pathogen, which spends the reproductive part of its life cycle inside host cells and is responsible for diseases of clinical and public health relevance. It is an essential element in the life cycle of pathogens, which is why Chlamydia trachomatis is defined as an obligate intracellular pathogen. Chlamydia gets its name from the tiny bacterium that causes it, Chlamydia trachomatis.