HIV / STI
The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Reported Chlamydia and Gonorrhea Cases Among Youth and Young Adults in Canada Farhan Khandakar* Farhan Khandakar Dr. Sahar Saeed Dr. Nichole Austin
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic caused numerous health service disruptions. We examined the impact of the pandemic on reported chlamydia and gonorrhea cases among young adults in Ontario, Canada.
Methods: Data on laboratory confirmed chlamydia and gonorrhea cases among young adults under 25 years of age were obtained from the integrated Public Health Information System database by Public Health Ontario between 2016–2021. The immediate impact of the pandemic was estimated using an Interrupted Time Series analysis. Linear regression models assessed trends in infections before and after the onset of the pandemic (March 2020) and were stratified by sex.
Results: A total of 138,812 chlamydia cases (92,064 females and 46,748 males) and 16,338 gonorrhea cases (7,575 females and 8,763 males) were reported over the observation period. Pre-pandemic chlamydia and gonorrhea cases were increasing between 2016-2020 (Figure 1). The onset of the pandemic resulted in immediate and statistically significant reductions in reported chlamydia and gonorrhea cases. Chlamydia cases declined by 1,064 cases (95% CI: -1,278, -851) between February to March 2020. Among males there was a decrease of 394 cases (-468, -320), while the reduction among females was by 670.2 cases (-816, -525). Similarly, gonorrhea cases declined, by 109 cases overall (-141, -77); and decreased by 73 cases among males ( -93, -53) and 36 case among females (-52, -20). Post-pandemic trends for both infections did not significantly differ from pre-pandemic slopes.
Conclusion: The pandemic significantly disrupted access to sexual health services. The disproportionately larger reduction in reported cases among males underscores the pre-existing gaps in screening strategies for this group, which were further exacerbated by the pandemic. Further studies will investigate if cases have since returned to pre-pandemic levels and if the gap can be leveraged to apply a correction factor to post-pandemic infection rates.
