Province launches $2M campaign to reduce STI rates

Alberta's rate of sexually transmitted infections highest in Canada

By Jodie Sinnema, edmontonjournal.com May 24, 2011 6:39 PM

EDMONTON - After years of delays and failed attempts to bring down the rising rate of syphilis — which killed four of nine babies infected in 2009 — the province has launched a $2-million awareness campaign that will target bar patrons and club goers.

A sharper, edgier campaign against all sexually transmitted diseases will follow, with $4 million in annual funding over the next three years. The campaign is intended to eradicate congenital syphilis cases and bring rates of gonorrhea, chlamydia, HIV and hepatitis down from the highest in the country to below the national average.

“We need to be much more aggressive than we ever have been and we need a lot more help than we ever thought we would,” said Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky, whose department will tackle the problem along with the education, aboriginal affairs and housing ministries, as well as the federal health and corrections departments and local community groups. “We’re not achieving the results we had hoped to achieve. … Whatever those efforts were, they were insufficient to yield the positive results that we’re looking for, so we have to ramp up, rethink some of that strategy, augment those parts that worked, discard some of those perhaps that didn’t work so well and move forward.”

Alberta’s rates of sexually transmitted infections are the highest in Canada, Zwozdesky said. In 2009, the province recorded 1,585 cases of gonorrhea, a rate 2.4 times higher than in 1999. Chlamydia cases jumped 207 per cent in that decade, to 13,000 infections in 2009.

Between 2005 and March 31, 2011, 25 babies had confirmed congenital syphilis. Nine died and one is blind.

During that same time period, 56 adults were diagnosed with neurosyphilis, of which 18 have permanent vision loss and one is blind.

Overall, the province had 279 syphilis cases in 2009, up from 77 cases in 2004 and only two cases in 1999. Left untreated, syphilis can cause severe brain, heart and bone damage, and can be fatal. Infected babies can suffer vision and hearing problems and diminished mental abilities.

Dr. Karen Grimsrud, a public health official, warned of the syphilis crisis back in 2007. One year later, she and three other public health officials, including the one in charge of sexually transmitted diseases, did not have their contracts renewed and left their jobs with Alberta Health and Wellness. None have said why they left.

Former health minister Ron Liepert also cancelled a broad campaign against syphilis, choosing to focus the fight on high-risk groups. But the infections have spilled over into the general population, affecting people as young as 14 and as old as 84, university students and professionals, homeless pregnant women and workers in the oilfield.

“Most Albertans are completely unaware of the risk that they’re taking. Nor do they know how serious the consequences can be,” said Dr. Andre Corriveau, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health.

The new five-year action plan will see Alberta Health Services hire another 10 nurses this year in addition to the 13 hired last year to track down past partners of those infected. Alberta’s health authority will boost a halftime physician position into a full-time one to focus on sexually transmitted diseases. Testing will continue to be offered three times during pregnancy instead of once. In a few weeks, an edgier campaign to target people aged 15 to 24 through social media will be rolled out. No details are yet available.

This past weekend, posters started going up at nightclubs featuring alluring young people and suggestions they may pass along more than coy smiles if you don’t know their sexual history. TV ads and video boards also warn people that infections don’t always come with obvious symptoms.

“Don’t you get it,” advises the syphilis campaign.

NDP Leader Brian Mason accused Zwozdesky of being “delinquent” for not responding sooner to the baby deaths.

“All of this could have been prevented,” he said. “This is absolutely disgusting and that is entirely at the feet of this government.”

But Dr. Ameeta Singh, who was the government consultant for sexually transmitted infections before her contract ended, said such a campaign is better late than never.

“At this point, I don’t think it is too late,” said Singh, an infectious disease professor at the University of Alberta who also works in Edmonton’s STD Clinic. “I’m very happy to see a comprehensive strategy.”

Edmonton’s clinic already has an outreach team that does on-site testing in places like the Remand Centre and the Boyle Street Community Co-op. Singh is also doing a research project to test a new rapid testing kit that supplies results in 20 minutes rather than 10 days. Preliminary results will be presented at an international conference this summer in Quebec.

Dr. David Swann, a former public health doctor and outgoing leader of the Alberta Liberals, also welcomed the campaign.

“We’ve never had a higher rate of syphilis than we have today,” Swann said. “This is a disgraceful state for our province to be in and speaks volumes to the lack of understanding and the lack of commitment in this government to health care and to a long-term plan and expert advice in that planning.”

David Eggen, executive director of Friends of Medicare, said he wondered if the government delayed an aggressive campaign because it felt embarrassed about broaching a sensitive topic, if “misguided morality” played a role or if there was a “tendency to blame the victim.”

“We need to make up for lost time here now,” Eggen said. “I think if we could have acted three years or four years or five years before … then probably (we) could have spent less money, time and effort here in 2011.”