Chlamydia cases rise sharply

Young people ages 18-24 most affected

Local cases of chlamydia, a sexually transmitted infection that often shows no symptoms and can lead to female infertility, have risen 67 per cent in five years.

Starting in 2007, they’ve gone from 525, to 641, to 569, to 776 and finally to 876 in 2011, Medical Officer of Health Dr. Allen Heimann said Wednesday. That’s a 36 per cent increase in the last two years. And the people getting it are predomi- nantly young, in the 18-to-24 age range.

“In the first couple of years, 2007, 2008 and 2009, we were looking at a gradual increase, and now it appears to be much greater in the last couple of years,” Heimann said. “What I think we’re looking at is the bacteria becoming established in the young, sexually active population.”

The Windsor- Essex Community Health Centre’s teen health site deals with “a lot of chlamydia,” said nurse Jennifer Jovanovski.

Young people are passing it along through inadequately protected sex. “And with chlamydia, sometimes there are no symptoms, so if they have multiple partners and they’re not protecting themselves adequately, you do run the risk of passing it along unknowingly.”

Heimann said the chlamydia numbers are primarily responsible for the rising number of STIS in the region. The good news is that unlike other STIS like HIV and herpes, it can be cured with a course of antibiotics.

For roughly half the people who have it, there are either no symptoms or they don’t take notice of such symptoms as yellow discharge from the penis or vagina, abdominal pain or a burning sensation while urinating.

“Which can be especially a problem in women because it can lead to continued infections, which can lead to problems with reproduction,” Heimann said. “It can affect women’s later fertility.”

The rise in cases is province- wide. Positive tests have gone from 23,000 in 2007 to 36,000 last year, a 56 per cent increase. “But we just don’t know how much of it is because more people are being tested and how much of it is because there is more chlamydia out there,” said Dr. Colin Lee, from Public Health Ontario’s department of infectious disease prevention and control.

Until recent years, the test for chlamydia involved swabbing the tip of the man’s penis and the inside of a woman’s vagina.

“Back in the ’90s, no one’s going to want to have something uncomfortable in their privates in order to see if they have something that doesn’t cause them any grief at the time,” Lee said.

Nowadays, all someone has to do is pee in a cup, he said. And public awareness campaigns have encouraged people to get tested. The result is the number of people being tested for chlamydia has been increasing by 10 per cent a year.

“It can lead to serious infection of the pelvic area that may require hospitalization, it’s still a very important disease that we want people to be diagnosed and treated for,” Lee said.

Jovanovski said the teen health site urges young people, if they are sexually active, to be cautious about who they choose as a partner, to use protection, and to come in — both of them — for a simple urine test before engaging in sex.

“It’s quick, it’s painless (and free), and you know the results within a couple of days.”