Ottawa’s rate of STDs continues to climb
Gonorrhea infections in Ottawa have soared 65 per cent this year, another spike in the frustratingly upward climb in the city’s rate of sexually transmitted infections, according to Ottawa Public Health.
Gonorrhea infections last jumped in Ottawa in 2013 and health officials assumed they were dealing with a new normal for STIs, said Leslie Tilley, supervisor of OPH’s sexually transmitted and blood born infections management unit. This year, the numbers jumped again.
“Nurses on the team were saying, ‘Man! More gonorrhea! Really?!’ And when we ran the numbers, we could see that they really were up,” Tilley said.
There have been 446 cases of gonorrhea so far in 2017, compared with 270 cases at the same time in 2016. If the pace continues, there will be 612 cases in 2017, compared with 371 the year before. The number of cases of gonorrhea in Ottawa has increased every year since 2012 when 236 cases were reported.
Most of this year’s increase has been among men who identify as gay or bisexual, Tilley said.
Chlamydia cases are also on the rise, up eight per cent compared with the same time last year. Since 2012, chlamydia infections have climbed 28 per cent, from 2,532 cases in 2012 to 3,262 cases last year.
The number of syphilis infections, which rose dramatically in 2016, has stabilized in 2017, Tilley said.
The increase in STIs is baffling, given the amount of public education about the risks of unprotected sex.
“Anyone working in STIs and infectious diseases is asking themselves the same question. There is a lot of information out there and it’s hard not to know what’s happening with these numbers. But knowledge doesn’t equal behaviour change.”
One problem, in the case of chlamydia, is that 70 per cent of women and 50 per cent of men with the infection show no symptoms.
“That’s what we’re fighting against. People don’t think it’s going to happen to them. People have notions of what infections look like and they’d be able to tell if they had them or their partner had them. That’s just not the case.”
The painful symptoms of gonorrhea are harder to miss, but with both chlamydia and gonorrhea, a simple urine test can detect most cases of genital infections. What many people don’t realize, however, is that both infections can also occur in the throat or rectum from oral or anal sex. Many people, and even doctors, don’t think to have those areas swabbed for infection.
“Our sense is that there’s a big cohort in the community who have oral chlamydia or gonorrhea who are never tested and never treated,” Tilley said.
Both infections are easily treated with a single dose antibiotic and an antibiotic injection. Fortunately, Tilley said, Ottawa hasn’t seen the strains of antibiotic resistant STIs that have reported elsewhere in North America.
The health unit is continuing its efforts to make condoms available and even provides the antibiotics free for those who can’t afford them. But the most important thing is that people can’t assume they are free of STIs, Tilley said.
“That cannot be the assumption. If you’ve had oral, anal or vaginal sex you are at risk and you should get tested. It’s scary, of course. But we try to normalize it as much as possible. Lots and lots and lots of people have it. The worst thing that can happen is you find out you have it, you get treated and it goes away.”
More information can be found on the sexual health link at ottawapublichealth.ca
The worst thing that can happen is you find out you have it, you get treated and it goes away.