Last month more than 1,300 women attended a health fair hosted by the Center for Prevention and Wellness in Pablo. The annual event, called the Women 4 Wellness fair, featured more than 130 vendors, including staff from area hospitals and health departments, and offered information and free screenings for cancer, HIV or sexually transmitted diseases.
The confidential tests can provide the first step toward treatment and play a vital role in preventing the spread of transmissible diseases. Health administrators continue to urge people to undergo screenings and use preventative practices, like condom use, amid a growing public health problem across the nation.
STDs remain the most frequently reported infectious diseases in Montana, oftentimes because people are not aware they are infected.
While most of the diseases are treatable and, at least in the early stages, completely curable, there are still severe consequences that exist and are increasingly coming to light.
Celebrity Michael Douglas recently revealed that his stage 4 throat cancer was the result of HPV. Douglas’ admission raised a new awareness about the life-threatening effects of HPV, considered the most common STD in America and linked to genital warts. There are several strains of the disease that can infect the mouth, throat, anus and genitals and cause cancer. Nearly all cervical cancer is caused by HPV. Roughly 33,300 Americans develop HPV-associated cancers each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“HPV is so rampant, we can’t keep on top of all the data. It’s everywhere,” said Laurie Volesky Kops, a supervisor in the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services. “We are seeing it in younger and younger people. We are having more neck, throat, tongue, mouth and anal cancers due to HPV.”
A vaccine has been developed that can defend men and women against certain strains of the cancer-causing HPV. Health officials are primarily focused on vaccinating people between the ages of 15 and 29, which is the age range with the highest STD rates.
The incidence rate of chlamydia in Montana has risen 70 percent in the last decade, including an 8 percent rise in 2012 from 2011, according to the DPHHS. The latest data through the first quarter of 2013 reveals the number of reported cases is on pace to match last year.
New data also show a higher than normal number of gonorrhea cases this year in three counties, including Lake.
Hepatitis C, linked to drug use through injections, also remains a significant problem in the state, according to Kops.
The number of individuals newly diagnosed with HIV spiked in 2009, with more than 30, but has since dropped to roughly 20 each year, according to the DPHHS. Nine new cases of HIV have been reported this year between January and March.
National HIV Testing Day is June 27, and local and state health administrators are encouraging residents to receive free screenings at sites across Montana.
The importance of being tested is especially apparent with HIV. Advancements in medicine have made the disease highly treatable and sizably reduced the chances that it can become AIDs.
“With the medication and treatment out there, there’s no reason for somebody to get an AIDs diagnosis. It’s totally preventable,” said Niki Graham, director of the Center for Prevention and Wellness in Pablo.
Graham and her small staff are working on the front lines of disease prevention in Western Montana.
Since being founded in 2005, the health center in Pablo has worked to increase health awareness and healthy behaviors by offering free screenings and education on disease prevention to anyone who walks through the door.
“I still to this day get folks who don’t know how (STDs are) transmitted,” Graham said. “We make sure the doors are always open to answer questions, provide testing and if they are positive, we connect them with the best resources out there. It’s just a matter of people coming in.”
The Center for Prevention and Wellness is located at 58138 U.S. Highway 93 in Pablo. Visit http://prevention.skc.edu.