UMATILLA COUNTY — Rising sexually transmitted disease rates has prompted the public health department of Umatilla County to offer residents free at-home testing kits.

“We want to make sure that we’re making this as barrier-free as possible,” Public Health Department Director Joe Fiumara said of the kits. “We thought this would be a good supplement, and coming out of the pandemic, and we wanted to see how it would take off.”

Admittedly, he said, the program took off slowly. It’s been about a year and a half since the mail-in testing partnership with Let’s Get Checked started, funded by the county.

Fiumara said it’s just in the last six months or so that more people are using the program. The at-home kits test for HIV, syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhea and trichomoniasis.

While the county’s numbers remain relatively low, he said, the rates have more than doubled during the last couple of years, particularly after mask mandates were lifted during the pandemic.

This trend worries him.

“We are seeing increases across the country,” Fiumara said, “so I don’t know that we’re unique, but we are seeing some higher rates of increase than some other areas.”

In fact, in the spring of this year, the Oregon Health Authority called the county public health department because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had asked the state specifically about the STD numbers in Umatilla County.

The two STDs of biggest concern for the county right now are syphilis and HIV, Fiumara said, which can be more complex to treat than other STDs. Unlike the STDs chlamydia and gonorrhea, syphilis and HIV can’t be cured with a simple, temporary pill regimen.

Furthermore, according to the CDC, syphilis can be hard to notice early because its first stage isn’t painful. The CDC also says HIV can appear as flu-like symptoms in the first few weeks after infection, which make it difficult to recognize without a test.

Both diseases can be passed down to babies.

Congenital syphilis, which occurs when newborns get the disease from their mothers, hadn’t been seen here for years, Fiumara said, until this year. There have been multiple cases, in and out of Umatilla County, since the year began.

“That is an indication to us of multiple failures,” he said. “Testing and treatment, prenatal care, general awareness.”

The general public seems to believe STDs aren’t a big deal, Fiumara said. They think they can just take a pill and it’ll go away.

That misconception is not what happens. Instead, HIV and syphilis often become increasingly complicated to treat as the diseases progress, and can lead to long-term health effects or even death.

The risks of the diseases and costs involved in treatment are two reasons the county implemented the free testing kits.

“There is a mindset in our area that this is something that happens on the west side, but this is happening here,” he said.

It was rare to even have one case of syphilis a few years ago, he added, and now it’s more common.

CollaborationThe department is collaborating with one of its Washington counterparts, the Walla Walla County Department of Community Health, Fiumara said, in an attempt to slow the increases.

“I know there were concerns about an uptick in cases in Umatilla County, and because we share a border, that’s why collaboration is important,” said Dr. Daniel Kaminsky, Walla Walla’s director of Public Health. “Some patients get care in Walla Walla County but live in Umatilla County and we don’t want to say it’s Umatilla County’s problem and so working together is just a good strategy.”

Kaminsky said Walla Walla County isn’t offering free testing and have stopped a lot of their direct care. Instead, he said, “A lot of our strategy is convening and collaboration with our community partners.”

Along with developing more accessible testing in Umatilla County and the surrounding areas, Fiumara hopes education can increase awareness.

“I don’t think it’s a secret in our area, in rural America in general, that sex is a topic that’s sometimes taboo at the dinner table,” Fiumara said. “There’s often been, especially historically, a lot of stigma for someone who gets diagnosed with an STD, regardless of the situation.”

Fighting the spread with knowledgeFiumara said he hopes that can change. He encourages parents to have conversations with their children about STDs because knowledge about them is one of the best ways to prevent them from spreading. The public health department is also trying to increase the number of free testing clinics they host, where people can get rapid STD results.

The first part of addressing this problem, he said, is ensuring people know where and how to test. After that, educating them about the effects of STDs and how to guard against them can come into play.

For now, he said, the focus is on awareness and getting people to take the right steps.

“The earlier we test,” Fiumara said, “the better the treatments and management strategies work.”