The number of babies born with syphilis in the U.S. continued its upward climb in 2021, new data shows, worrying doctors and public health investigators in Texas who have been trying to draw attention to what they say is a largely hidden crisis.
Nationally, congenital syphilis cases rose by an “alarming” 32 percent from the previous year, according to a report published last month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Texas accounted for the largest share of cases, 680, and tied Mississippi for the fourth-highest rate of congenital syphilis in the nation with 182 cases per 100,000 live births.
“This has been a big deal,” said Cynthia Deverson, who serves on the regional body that reviews congenital syphilis cases in the greater Houston region. “It’s just that now we have the technology and the staffing and the education to understand that it’s a big deal.”
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease that can cause small, usually painless sores that heal on their own, regardless of whether a person is still infected. If left untreated, the disease can progress to later stages in which it remains hidden, with no visible signs or symptoms. It might take years for complications to arise. Long-term damage can extend to the brain, nerves, eyes, heart, blood vessels, liver, bones and joints.
In a pregnant person, syphilis may pass to the unborn child with potentially devastating consequences. Congenital syphilis led to 220 stillbirths and infant deaths nationally in 2021. Babies who survive can experience severe symptoms like deformed bones, an enlarged liver and spleen, meningitis, skin rashes and nerve damage that can affect their sight and hearing.
The reason for the increase is complex. Cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis all went up in the first year of the pandemic. The change might reflect an increase in patients who sought care at clinics after stay-home orders were lifted, the CDC said. It also could mean greater disease spread, as those with an STD may have had their infection longer and more opportunities to transmit the infection to sexual partners. Additionally, the frequency of new sexual partners may have changed as people re-emerged from quarantine.
The pandemic only partially explains the surge, as cases had been increasing for years before COVID-19 arrived. Experts say social barriers to health care access, coupled with a general lack of awareness of the importance of testing and treatment, has allowed the disease to spread in Texas.
Many patients and health care providers “don’t even understand syphilis is still a thing, as it has been for centuries,” Deverson said. “As someone who is reviewing actual cases and speaks to actual (patients), it has been astounding.”
There’s a lot more, so read the rest. The rate of syphilis dropped in the 80s following all of the safe-sex advocacy that came with the AIDS epidemic, but it has been creeping back up in recent years. The state of Texas has taken some proactive steps to fight back, including enhanced syphilis surveillance, more funds to train health workers on syphilis testing, and launching a podcast about syphilis awareness and prevention. Here’s a fact I didn’t know, which apparently a lot of doctors don’t know as well: In the state of Texas, three syphilis tests are required during pregnancy. Anyway, read the rest and learn more about this.