Iowa health officials are seeing an alarming increase in the number of people diagnosed with sexually transmitted diseases. There is a report that Polk county health department is teaming up with the board of supervisors to fund a new social media campaign to try to keep these rampant STD’s from spreading and create awareness on the importance of getting tested for STDs upon citing early symptoms.

At the Polk county health department, the government is making all efforts to make people aware of the spread of STD in the community and inform people about the risks of STDs. It seems that they’re not getting the message. Chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis and HIV have all increased of the year 2018.

So we are seeing an increase in numbers. Those numbers keep going up. Volunteers are working on major campaigns to change that. 15-24-year-olds account for half of the 2 million new cases of STDs in the US every year. Often show no symptoms and if you’re not getting tested, and you are having unprotected sex you don’t know if you already carrying an STD. That can lead to health consequences.

Nola Aigner Head of the department, Polk county STD department said, “we can see fertility issues, sometimes it can lead to dementia or even death”. Last year in Polk County, more than 3500 people had chlamydia, more than 1500 had gonorrhea, 177 had syphilis with 45 cases of HIV. This is on the rise, people should get tested and know their status.

The board of supervisors has agreed to fund a public awareness campaign by creating a youtube channel and podcast. This serves different purposes first of all to encourage safe sex practices and when they are involved in multiple partner situations to always use protection. There will be videos done, that teaches them all the different types of protection, all the different options for birth control, how to use a condom and things like that.

They hope young people will tune in to social media to help stop the spread of std’s that can be easily prevented. Parents may want to encourage teenagers and young adults to watch youtube videos and listen to podcasts. They will be online the end of this month and you can access them on the Polk county health page on the youtube.