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State's Report Says STD's Still a Problem

The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services released its updated statewide report of infectious diseases last week.  Although the numbers seem to be down in some areas, cases of sexually transmitted diseases are holding strong. 

The Department of Health and Social Services has been publishing a bulletin of reported infectious diseases in Alaska annually for decades.  The bulletin includes a side by side comparison in numbers from the year before.  The diseases shown are some of those that are required to be reported to the state health department.  Epidemiologist for the State of Alaska Department of Health Louisa Castrodale says the diseases are recorded when a person seeks treatment and is diagnosed.

“It’s a yearly summary, these are reports that are coming in every day and being investigated every day. While it may look alarming to see it all in one place at one time these are conditions that are being treated on a daily basis. It’s not like we get to the end of the year and we go ‘wow, we’ve had a really big year for this disease,’ as we get reports we are thinking about what kind of interventions need to happen, sort of real time and not waiting for 12 months of data before something gets put into play.”

The report shows that although the cases of malaria are down in Alaska to four from eight last year, the number of STD cases like chlamydia aren’t following that pattern.  In 2012, over 5400 cases of chlamydia were reported, and in 2013 the number jumped to almost 5800.

HIV and STD program manager for the State of Alaska Department of Health Susan Jones says the Center for Disease Control ranked Alaska at number one in cases of chlamydia per capita and number five in cases of gonorrhea.  She says there isn’t one specific reason for these rates but several possibilities working together.

“There’s just more disease in the population and we aren’t able to control it. It could be that Alaska is a younger population on a whole. The average age of an Alaskan is around 33, the last time I checked the Department of Labor statistics. You have a population of people who have access to free health care, the Alaska Native population. They are very responsive so they may go in and get screened more often. You don’t have an established public health infrastructure in every geographic site in the state.”

Jones says the best ways to avoid contracting an STD, other than abstinence, is using protection and knowing your partner.  For the full report visit the State of Alaska Epidemiology website at www.epi.Alaska.gov