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Rates of infectious syphilis and gonorrhea have skyrocketed to outbreak levels in Alberta in the past year, a disturbing trend health leaders link to the rise of social media sites used for sexual hookups.

“The use of social media to make an anonymous connection, very quickly, we believe is driving this particular outbreak,” said Dr. Karen Grimsrud, the province’s new chief medical officer of health. “When people don’t know their sexual partners’ identities, it makes it difficult for public health to contact partners, as far as setting up testing and treatment.”

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She said Alberta Health Services and the province will step up efforts to combat the outbreak, in part by expanding the hours of sexual health clinics and encouraging family physicians to speak to their patients about the importance of getting tested. AHS is also working on strengthening an awareness campaign that will try to reach at-risk groups through social media and the sexgerms.com website.

“We will be using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and whatever else comes along, more intensely than we have,” said Dr. Gerry Predy, senior medical officer of health for AHS. “If we can identify the websites people are going to hook up, then we can target … those sites with ads we want to get out.”