In the last three years, gonorrhea rates in Sudbury have doubled — and chlamydia rates in northern Ontario are already higher than the provincial average.

The Sudbury and District Health Unit hopes a new program will eliminate the first barrier to getting tested by cutting out the embarrassment of going to a doctor or clinic to ask for a test.

You can now go to its website anonymously and print off a test request form. Then, you bring that form to a medical lab and give a urine sample to test for chlamydia and gonorrhea.

Those are the most common sexual infections, and often, they don't show symptoms.

"If you're not having symptoms you might be at risk, you might say, 'Oh well, I don't want to go there so I'm just going to not go at all.' That way it takes away that people barrier," said Gisele Sbrega, the manager of the health unit's sexual health program.

"There are people that will not access us. It could be because they're too shy, or because they live too far away."

Sbrega said there are usually about 600 chlamydia cases in Greater Sudbury every year.

Sudburian Anne Labranche said she thinks many people in the city are too shy to get tested for sexually transmitted infections.

"I think [this option] great, I think it leaves less reason for excuses not to get tested," she said.

"A lot of it would be just embarrassment or being classified as overly sexually active."​