This year already the region has seen 15 cases of syphilis while previous years saw only zero to four.  Medical Officer of Health for the Northern Health Region Dr. Michael Isaac says they have an outbreak response they’re following.  He says it involves communicating with their clinicians providing some education for them because many clinicians haven’t seen syphilis in the past so it’s a very old disease that they haven’t seen and is now back in our communities so bringing in some clinician education, public education and they’re doing some enhanced surveillance, gathering more data and they’re analyzing it in different ways than they would have in the past.

Isaac says practicing safe sex is one of the best ways to prevent the disease from spreading.