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Speaker 1: Our territorians are being encouraged to get an STI check

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Speaker 1: for a huge spike in siphless cases. There's been one

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Speaker 1: hundred and eighty three cases so far this year, with

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Speaker 1: nt Health standing up an incident management team to drive

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Speaker 1: numbers down. Now joining us on the line to tell

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Speaker 1: us more is the acting Chief Health Officer, Paul Burgess.

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Speaker 1: Good morning to you, PAULK morning, Katie.

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Speaker 2: How are you?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, really good? Thanks so much for your time this morning. Now, Paul,

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Speaker 1: how much of an increase has there been in these

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Speaker 1: cases and how does that compare to previous years.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks, Katie. We've actually had increasing numbers of siphless

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Speaker 2: cases since twenty thirteen, really and during the pandemic years

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Speaker 2: when people weren't moving around so much, we saw those

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Speaker 2: case numbers decline. Thanks to the hard work of our

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Speaker 2: health staff testing and treating with restrictions listed from the pandemic,

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Speaker 2: people are moving around a lot more and with our

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Speaker 2: that we've seen cases increase. You're right, we've had a

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Speaker 2: significant increase in twenty twenty five, perhaps more than double that.

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Speaker 2: We were around about double what we would have seen

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Speaker 2: in previous years. So it's time for us to really

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Speaker 2: coordinate activity across the Northern Territory and really try and

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Speaker 2: drive those case numbers down again.

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Speaker 1: So obviously this incident management team has been stood up.

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Speaker 1: What work are they going to do?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we've got three goals really for the Instant management

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Speaker 2: team and it's important you'd appreciate that we all need

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Speaker 2: to move together. We've seen some heroic and fantastic efforts

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Speaker 2: in isolated areas the Northern Territory every previous years, but

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Speaker 2: as you'd imagine, the population territory is fairly mobile, so

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Speaker 2: it's important we all move together. The Inctant Management team,

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Speaker 2: we are partnering with the Aboriginal community controlled health organizations,

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Speaker 2: the Norman Territory PHN, those sexual health organizations. Our three

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Speaker 2: goals to increase testing the simpless and we want to

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Speaker 2: decrease the time to treatment following a positive test. And critically,

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Speaker 2: we want to prevent sipless being an issue during pregnancy

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Speaker 2: for women.

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Speaker 1: Who is most at risk of contracting USh.

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Speaker 2: Simplicit Is are sexually transmitted infection. Both men and women

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Speaker 2: can get sipless and unfortunately also it can be passed

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Speaker 2: on to babies during pregnancies. So people who are sexually

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Speaker 2: active and I guess who want more than one partther

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Speaker 2: and would be at risk and simplest is a tricky

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Speaker 2: illness because symptoms can be mild and easy to miss,

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Speaker 2: so and you may have no symptoms at all. So

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Speaker 2: it's really important that we put the education out there

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Speaker 2: around safe sex behaviors such as using condoms and having

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Speaker 2: regular sexual health testing. It's really the best way to

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Speaker 2: text yourself and your sexual partners from sexually transmit infections,

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Speaker 2: including syphilis.

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Speaker 1: What are the signs and symptoms? I mean, I know

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Speaker 1: you said that they can be difficult to see or

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Speaker 1: some people may not even have them, but what are

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Speaker 1: those signs and symptoms?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's important to say. It can be nothing, so

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Speaker 2: people may not know they have syphilis. Generally speaking, around

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Speaker 2: two to three weeks after contracting syphless, some people can

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Speaker 2: develop a saw or an ulcer, and it can be

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Speaker 2: small and easy to miss, and that's an ulcerer would

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Speaker 2: appear at the point of sexual contact. In a few

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Speaker 2: weeks down the track. The second stage of syphilis is

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Speaker 2: generally you get a rash on the body and also

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Speaker 2: on the soles of the feats and on the palms

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Speaker 2: of the hand. But again it's quite mild and can

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Speaker 2: be easy to miss. So if any of those sinces

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Speaker 2: do arise, it is a prompt to get tested. But

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Speaker 2: even if you have no symptoms wondering that your sexual

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Speaker 2: health is no profitable to come and have a free

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Speaker 2: and confidential sexual health checkup either with your GP or

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Speaker 2: your community health clinic or through the Northern Cheretric Government's

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Speaker 2: clinic thirty four locations in the five regional centers.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so people will be able to jump online and

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Speaker 1: find those centers, the regional centers or just get in

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Speaker 1: contact with their GP.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, And the important thing is that we do have

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Speaker 2: people get testing for sexual health. That I would see

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Speaker 2: it as a former GP is just an important part

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Speaker 2: of your general health checkup is to every now and

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Speaker 2: then have a sexual health checkup. If you are sexually

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Speaker 2: active then particularly no younger age groups, we do recommend

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Speaker 2: you have a sexual health checkup as part of your

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Speaker 2: check up every year.

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Speaker 1: Hey, Poul, before I let you go, I understand there's

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Speaker 1: also been a recorded well the first recorded case of

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Speaker 1: XDR gonorrhea in May.

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Speaker 2: What is that? Yeah, looks a different topic. We can

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Speaker 2: speak to that of detail another time. But what we

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Speaker 2: see generally speaking, is gonorrhea is another sexually transmitted infection.

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Speaker 2: What we're seeing worldwide is emerging resistance to the standard

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Speaker 2: antibiotics primarily that's been an issue in overseas locations, particularly

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Speaker 2: in Southeast Asia and XDRS down for extensive drug resistance.

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Speaker 2: So it means our first line therapies that are still

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Speaker 2: quite affect to the Northern territory may not be effective

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Speaker 2: or I guess gonnery infections picked up and overseas locations.

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Speaker 2: So again the critical message here in the public health

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Speaker 2: sense is safe sex behaviors are really important, particularly if

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Speaker 2: you're traveling. Using condoms and having sexual health testing are

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Speaker 2: really the best ways to protect your health and the

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Speaker 2: health of your partners.

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Speaker 1: Well, I really appreciate your time this morning, Acting Chief

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Speaker 1: Health Officer, Paul Burgess, thank you so much for having

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Speaker 1: a chat with us.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Cardi, thank you