The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday reported that there has been a significant increase in syphilis cases among newborns across the United States.
The federal agency wants medical providers to start syphilis treatment when a pregnant woman first tests positive, rather than waiting for confirmatory testing, and to expand access to transportation so the women can get treatment. The CDC also called for rapid tests to be made available beyond doctors’ offices and sexually transmitted disease clinics to other places.
“Syphilis during pregnancy can cause tragic outcomes, like miscarriage, stillbirth, infant death, and lifelong medical issues,” the CDC said. “Newborn syphilis occurs when mothers do not receive timely testing and treatment during pregnancy.”
Syphilis is a bacterial infection that for centuries was a common but feared disease. New infections plummeted in the U.S. starting in the 1940s when antibiotics became widely available and fell to their lowest mark in the late 1990s. However, by 2002, cases began rising again.
In congenital syphilis, pregnant women can pass the disease on to their babies, potentially leading to death of the child or health problems for the child like deafness, blindness, and malformed bones.
“The congenital syphilis crisis in the United States has skyrocketed at a heartbreaking rate,” CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry said in the report. “New actions are needed to prevent more family tragedies. We’re calling on healthcare providers, public health systems, and communities to take additional steps to connect mothers and babies with the care they need.”
About 40 percent of newborn syphilis cases occurred in individuals who don’t have prenatal care, the report found. The federal health agency said that any heath care provider can provide the pregnant woman with an opportunity to get testing, including visits to emergency rooms, maternal and child health programs, and drug treatment facilities.
The CDC recommends that officials address the illness in areas with high rates of syphilis by offering to screen certain women and their partners “as well as people with other risk factors for syphilis.”
It also recommends that health care providers “consider starting syphilis treatment right away following a positive rapid syphilis test during pregnancy if the patient faces greater obstacles to ongoing care.”
“The congenital syphilis epidemic is an unacceptable American crisis. All pregnant mothers—regardless of who they are or where they live—deserve access to care that protects them and their babies from preventable disease,” said Jonathan Mermin, a CDC official, in the report. “Our nation should be proactive and think beyond the OB/GYN’s office and bridge prevention gaps. Every encounter a healthcare provider has with a patient during pregnancy is an opportunity to prevent congenital syphilis.”
If syphilis is diagnosed early in a pregnancy, the threat of passing it to the baby can be removed by a single penicillin shot. But experts say the later you get into pregnancy, the more likely you’ll need multiple shots, and they have to be completed at least 30 days before delivery.
“I have had patients who have been on (a three-shot) regimen who then miss a shot,” said Dr. Nina Ragunanthan, an OB/GYN at the Delta Health Center in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, reported The Associated Press. “So they are trying to get their shots, but if they don’t get the three in a row, because of transportation issues, because of job issues, child care issues, any number of reasons that prevent them from coming back, they don’t complete their treatment.”
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is the nation’s sole supplier of the penicillin shot. Earlier this year, company officials said it was in short supply because of increased demand. Pfizer also said the shortage may not be resolved until next year.
The CDC told AP, however, that the shortage didn’t affect the 2022 congenital syphilis case numbers and that, despite the shortage, it isn’t aware of patients not getting their needed shots.
The CDC says that the “ second stage of symptoms” includes skin rashes as well as “mucous membrane lesions” occur up to “several weeks” after the initial sore heals.
Late-stage symptoms of syphilis, if it is untreated, can appear 10 to 30 years later and can be fatal, says the CDC’s website. It can affect multiple organ systems, including the brain, heart, liver, bones, eyes, and other parts of the body.
“Initially it manifested as a mild disease, eventually aggravated and grew in virulence, suffering from several mutations, at the end of the 15th century,” the paper said.
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