STIs on the rise in Nunavik

Paukuutit developed these cute condoms with safe sex messages. Nunavik’s public health wants to encourage condom use among the 15 to 29 year-old age group, the same group that’s contracting STIs at rates that are many times higher than people living elsewhere in Quebec. (FILE PHOTO)

Don’t be silly, wrap your willy.

Or be a loner, or cover your boner.

Those are two of the fun slogans urging young people to use condoms to avoid anything-but-fun infections.

It’s also part of an effort by Nunavik’s public health department to encourage safe sex among the region’s teens and 20-somethings.

That same age group has the highest rate of gonorrhea in Quebec.

Statistics from 2008 show that 4.4 per cent of Nunavik’s population caught the disease, at a rate that’s 55 times higher that in the rest of Quebec.

Condoms, which help prevent the exchange of bodily fluids that carry infections, are available free-of-charge in Nunavik’s health centres and at local co-op stores.

But to reach even more youth, a public health nurse in the region also wants to see condom distribution machines installed in airports and other public places.

Faye Le Gresley, hired in 2005 as the region’s public health nurse for sexually-transmitted and blood-borne infections, says this move may help stabilize gonorrhea rates, which began to soar in 2007.

It’s not clear what caused the sudden increase, she said, although health officials say in general outbreaks can spread faster in isolated communities.

Before 2005, between 10 and 40 cases of gonorrhea were reported every year.

Now about 15 cases of gonorrhea are reported in Nunavik every month.

And over the course of this past year Nunavik racked up 176 cases of the STI.

Sometimes referred to as the “clap,” gonorrhea is a bacterial infection transmitted by oral, genital or anal sex with another infected person.

Infected men and women might experience a burning sensation while urinating or discharge from the vagina or penis.

If untreated, gonorrhea can lead to infertility. In pregnant women, the infection can be passed to the unborn baby, causing blindness or blood infections.

So, if you think you might have picked up this bug, go to your local health centre because early treatment and contact tracing are the most effective tools against gonorrhea and other STIs, Le Gresley said.

If you come into the local health centre to be checked out, you’ll be tested and treated right away.

If a test comes back positive, you’ll be asked to provide names of anyone you may have had sexual relations during the past two months.

The nurse will then contact those people, too, and ask them to come in for testing and treatment, to prevent the spread of infection.

Everything is kept entirely confidential.

Chlamydia, which can cause infertility and put unborn babies at risk of premature birth, is another prominent STI in Nunavik, although chlamydia rates in Nunavik have been stable for many years, with 236 cases reported so far in 2010.

HIV infection is probably also around the region as well.

Over the last eight years, about 10 Quebec Inuit tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus that can lead to AIDS.

But because some didn’t mark down Nunavik is their place of residence, it’s not clear whether these HIV-positive tests came from Inuit living in Nunavik or elsewhere in Quebec.

To reduce the rates of STIs across Nunavik, Le Gresley and her partners – which include health centres, schools, community groups and government – plan to focus their efforts on the 15 to 29-year-old age group.

“We acknowledge that it can’t just be done with pamphlets and posters,” she said. “The only way to prevent STIs is through education and condom use.”

Educational efforts included a visit last winter by HIV-positive Inuk woman to four Nunavik schools where she promoted safe sex practices.