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Syphilis-HIV pop-in clinic now open

A pop-up syphilis-HIV clinic is now open to the public.
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This is one of the test kits that will be used on patients that attend the newly-created syphilis-HIV testing clinic at Centre Square Mall. Kaicheng Xin/NNSL photo

A pop-up syphilis-HIV clinic is now open to the public.

Dec. 1 was the first day of operation at Centre Square Mall; the launch occurred on World AIDS Day. The facility will provide rapid test kits for members of the public to test their results for sexually-transmitted infections (STI) without having to make an appointment.

CPHO Declared a Syphilis Outbreak

David Maguire, manager of communications with the Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority (NTHSSA), said that syphilis rates have been on the rise in the NWT, causing Dr. Kami Kandola, the NWT’s Chief Public Health Officer (CPHO) to declare a syphilis outbreak.

Maguire said the Department of Health and Social Services (HSS) is trying to take actions to ensure that people have ways to access testing, but also provide awareness about testing and the importance of safe sexual behaviors.

According to NTHSSA statistics, the total number of syphilis cases for 2022 sits at 184, broken down into 110 infectious cases, 18 non-infectious cases, three congenital cases, and 53 cases with missing information required to determine infectiousness (no idea if they are infectious or not).

Kristin Richardson, a public health nurse practitioner, said since 2019, Public Health had noticed that cases of syphilis in NWT had increased by 253 per cent.

The pop-in clinic is different than what HSS were usually does, said Maguire.

“Normally, if people want to do STI test, they have to go to the public health and book an appointment at Primary Care and then they will be able to get tested in a private clinic setting,” he said.

There are 2,500 rapid test kits available throughout the NWT.

“I think the most important is that this is an easy thing to do, it’s really simple, and we want people to know that sexual infections are a part of life,” said Maguire. “To protect themselves, to protect their partners, to protect the community and make sure everybody is healthy and well.”

If people don’t want to get tested, they can still come to the clinic to get information and support, Maguire added.

To protect privacy, those who are tested will remain anonymous and a number will be given during registration. People will be called based on the number to get tested through the whole process.

The test includes drawing blood and the results should be known after around 15 to 20 minutes. If there’s a positive result for syphilis or HIV, nurses and public health workers will perform a consultation.

The consultation will include a discussion to what the next steps will be, if another test needs to be done, and treatment options. There will also be contact tracing for those who may have been infected. Patients will also be connected with the public health team for any follow up if they need.

“The goal is really to get people out and get tested,” said Maguire. “As we know, the case (amount) is going up (and) we want to try something new to reduce the barrier of access to testing and this is one of the ideas. If it works, we’ll do it again.”

Since 2019 the public health had noticed that the Syphilis cased in NWT had increased by 253%.