TMC PULSE

13 t m c » p u l s e | o c t o b e r 2 0 1 8 that promote coming into town, meeting some- body and you can have a relationship with that person. That person could be infected with syphi- lis or HIV or gonorrhea or chlamydia and transfer it to another person. The difficult thing about it is that the person goes on to the next place and these websites don't keep names—there's no way to go back and identify who that person is— so traditional partner notification efforts are not as effective." In her role as a principal investigator for the CDC-funded National HIV Behavioral Surveillance, Wermuth also worked on a study last year that offered on-site chlamydia and gonorrhea testing for the local population of men who have sex with men in places where they meet. "Houston has definitely been a pioneer in allowing testing to happen in the bars—not just in a mobile unit outside. This is so important to getting people to change the community norm about screening and about awareness," she said. "From my work locally in Houston, I would say that people are aware that there are issues with chlamydia and gonorrhea and that people are interested in getting information and getting tested. You still have issues with sexual health awareness in general. We really should work on providing information on … who should get tested, when they should get tested, where they should get tested and how they get tested. "In Houston, there is Legacy, Bee Busy, St. Hope, the Houston Health Department mobile clinics—all sorts of clinics available for free testing or sliding scale for people who are worried that they can't afford it, because that shouldn't be an issue for anyone. There is available free testing and support." Routine testing urged The ongoing national spike in preventable infections highlights the urgent need for routine testing, said Thomas Giordano, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor and chief of infectious dis- eases in the department of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. "I think health care systems and providers need to do more testing. There is plenty of evi- dence that people who should be screened for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections don't get tested enough, so we need to add this on to routine care," he said. "Primary care providers and anyone, really, who is caring for a patient, should be screen- ing for hepatitis, HIV and sexually transmitted infections. It's not that hard to do." Giordano also is the longtime medical director of Harris Health System's Thomas Street Health Center, one of the largest HIV clinics in the U.S. "Get tested and get treated. Ignorance is not bliss," he said. "Some patients need to ask for testing because that will make the provider do the test, but providers need to take the initiative, as well. People think they're getting tested when they get routine blood work. They assume. We need to make sure we are thoughtful about this in approaching it from a very wide perspective to test people broadly. It's no moral failing to test for HIV, syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhea and hepatitis. It's what we're supposed to do." Source: Houston Health Department b l u e m e r c u r y · S u g a r F i n a · D r y b a r · S t e e l C i t y P o p s · S u s i e C a k e s S t a r b u c k s · S h a k e S h a c k · H o p d o d d y · U r b a n O u t f i t t e r s · M A C B a n a n a R e p u b l i c · G a p · A t h l e t a · E x p r e s s · O r i g i n s · S h o p R i c e O w l s S e p h o r a · B a t h a n d B o d y W o r k s · A l t a r ' d S t a t e L i l y R a i n · V i c t o r i a ' s S e c r e t now open U N I V E R S I T Y B L V D A T K I R B Y D R . R I C E V I L L A G E D I S T R I C T . C O M · 7 1 3 . 3 0 2 . 8 9 1 8 @ r i c e v i l l a g e d i s t r i c t r i c e v i l l a g e meet STD TREND IN HARRIS COUNTY PRIMARY & SECONDARY SYPHILIS GONORRHEA CHLAMYDIA 23,452 27,381 6,482 8,827 307 326 ■ 2013 ■ 2017

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