actually transmitted diseases there on
the rise in the US 2.3 million new cases
were diagnosed last year chlamydia
gonorrhea syphilis appear to all be
making big gains in numbers of people
infected most STDs can be treated but
there have been national trends of super
resistant gonorrhea that is very hard to
treat so the more information that
people have to prevent STDs the better
so looking at Florida Duval in Alachua
counties they are by far the highest
with Nassau and st. John's very light
red these are the lowest numbers coming
in for every 100,000 people Duval had
more than 1100 STD cases in 2017 and
OBGYN at Memorial Hospital says that
they're seeing patients with more STDs I
think that patients tend to excuse me
being a little bubble when it comes to
STDs they think that they're immune to
having getting STDs because oh well we
have all these treatment options out
there you know no one really has STDs
anymore so joining me more to talk about
this increase Sabrina Clews Minh she is
the assistant director of clinical
services at Jasmine thank you for coming
in to talk about this thank you for
having me you guys were seeing an
increase as well just how much well
we've been seen an increase last year we
saw over 700 people at our clinic and we
are once a week Clinic for four hours so
anything about 700 people over a weekly
clinic that's a lot we've already
surpassed that number this year already
this year yeah so we're already you know
we're seeing more people coming into the
clinic we are seeing an increase in the
number of STDs as well but we're also we
have a hundred percent treatment success
rate at our clinic so we feel really
good about that we're identifying sti's
we're getting them treated that well and
it's fantastic that you're able to
identify them because obviously that
keeps it from spreading you guys have a
very youth friendly approach do you
think that's first of all how do you do
that and how do you think that that's
helping to to maybe combat this problem
well at Jasmine we've been around
well actually 24 this month so we've
been in the community for 24 years and
we keep the youth at the center of all
the decisions we make as an agency and
that applies in our clinic so our clinic
is very youth focused when young people
come in they sign in they're not given a
whole sack of paperwork to fill out on
their own
they fill out one sheet of paper they
bring it back up to us and then we kind
of hold the pressure of filling out all
of the paperwork and then they get to
sit with a young staff person themselves
and get to talk about what's going on in
their lives in a way that they feel
comfortable they don't feel like they're
being judged and it's a very youth
centered environment where it just
really takes into account their
comfortability level for those that
don't know what Jasmine is can you
explain exactly how you guys help in the
community yeah so Jasmine is a local
nonprofit we work with lesbian gay
bisexual and transgender young people
between the ages of 13 and 29 and we
offer programs and services and clinical
services and let's talk about the number
of youth that you're serving you gave us
some numbers about just how many kids
that you're seeing but you do a lot more
than just the clinics yeah absolutely we
served over a thousand young people in
Jacksonville last year and we do
programs where they can come and hang
out in our drop-in center get access to
support services we have a cyber center
we also do case management services for
young people living with HIV we also do
case management for homeless youth we
have a new safety net Resource Center
that will be opening later this year and
we also do our clinical services so we
do STI testing HIV testing linkage to
care and treatment and then we also get
young people on prep which is prevention
medicine to prevent HIV going back to
this FTD increase when you're talking to
the kids what do you think is the reason
that we're seeing these numbers go up is
it lack of education is is it
promiscuity and are there any real solid
answers as to why I think there is a
multitude of reasons why young people
are getting you know that STDs are on
the rise I think that when young people
don't feel that they have a safe place
to go to talk about what's really going
on in their lives it tends to they feel
like they have to hide and so if you
feel like you have to hide then it can
lead to increase in risk taking
behaviors so if there's more opportunity
for young people to be themselves and
meet safe adults who can give them
accurate health information the more
that they'll be able to take care of
themselves and that's exactly what you
guys are offering in the whole scope of
things thank you so much for coming in
and talking about having me and we also
want to let you know if you want to see
a news for Jax reporter Scott Johnson's
stories on the
rise of STDs you can watch those just
head to news for Jax comm Vic