400,000 Americans might have chlamydia and not even know it

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last updated 8 January 2015

You might have a sexually transmitted disease and not even know it. But, don't freak out, because there are hundreds of thousands of people just like you.

According to a new government report, approximately 1.8 million people contracted chlamydia between 2007 and 2012, but only 1.4 million infections have been reported. That equates to 400,000 people left undiagnosed.

HealthDay reports that the researchers, who used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for the report, found that "young women are at a much greater risk of harboring chlamydia, with infection rates the highest among sexually active girls between the ages of 14 and 19." Infection rates also varied greatly between races, with 18.6 percent of sexually active black teens having chlamydia, compared to just 3.2 percent of sexually active white teen girls.

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Jordan Valinsky is the lead writer for Speed Reads. Before joining The Week, he wrote for New York Observer's tech blog, Betabeat, and tracked the intersection between popular culture and the internet for The Daily Dot. He graduated with a degree in online journalism from Ohio University.