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OTTAWA, August 28, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) — Ottawa Public Health is warning that syphilis is dramatically on the rise in active homosexual males, stating last month that it has seen a 76 percent increase from the number of cases reported last year and that over 90 percent of new cases are among active homosexual men.

The city’s public health department is so concerned about the outbreak that it has set up testing booths at local bathhouses where homosexual men gather.

“Syphilis is highly infectious,” said Patrick O’Byrne, a registered nurse and Sexual Health Centre spokesperson for the public health department, to homosexual news service Daily Xtra.

“The other risk is that people often don’t even know they have it. There are classical symptoms that can be easily missed or misclassified,” he said.

The highly contagious bacterial disease is transmitted through skin-to-skin contact by an infected person and is often passed through genital contact with the mouth and anus. Symptoms are often mild and can include a red skin rash that does not itch on the palms of the hands or soles of the feet. If left untreated, syphilis can damage the heart, liver, eyes, and brain, leaving dreadful long-lasting effects. It can eventually kill the infected.

“If left untreated, syphilis is fatal,” said O’Byrne, adding that the city’s public health department is urging active homosexual men to get tested.

Ottawa is not the only major Canadian city experiencing disease outbreaks in the homosexual population. Earlier this year health care authorities in Newfoundland warned the public of a significant increase in the numbers of syphilis cases among homosexual men in the most populous region of the province.

The outbreak is not just confined to North America. A new study in the UK this summer found that cases of syphilis and gonorrhea among homosexual males was considerably higher than that of the general population, prompting health experts to say the problem must be a public health priority and that this is likely just “the tip of the iceberg.”

Pro-life-and-family leaders have long warned that sex taken out of the context of one man and one woman committed to one another in the life-long and exclusive relationship of marriage will inevitably lead to perverted and distorted sexual practices, increased rates of promiscuity and disease, social breakdown, and numerous wounded and broken individuals.