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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of babies born with syphilis has more than doubled in the last four years and last year reached a 20-year high.
Syphilis can be passed from a pregnant mother to her unborn baby through the placenta. The infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths and infants born with it can suffer from a wide variety of serious health problems, including malformations, seizures, anemia and jaundice.
Congenital syphilis can be treated with penicillin, but the damage caused by the disease can last a lifetime.
The elimination of syphilis was almost completed in 2000, said Dr. Gail Bolan, Director of S.T.D. prevention in C.D.C. "Congress supported – they even claimed that our work in science and technology would prepare us for bioterrorism," she said.
"The cost analysis showed that billions would be saved by investing in disposal, and we had a much more robust public health system at that time," she said. "We really reduced syphilis to a low level."
But, according to the new report, "progress has since been dismantled".
In 2017, there were 101,567 cases of syphilis reported. Of these, 30,644 were primary and secondary cases – the earliest and most infectious stages of the disease.
This represents a rate of 10.5% higher than in 2016 and a 72.7% increase since 2013. The number of syphilis cases has increased every year since 2013.
At the same time, the number of cases of congenital syphilis has also steadily increased from 362 in 2013 to 918 cases in 2017, a national rate of 23.3 per 100,000 live births in 2017.
The highest rate of congenital diseases was observed in Louisiana, with 93.4 cases per 100,000 births. Rates were also high in Nevada, California, Texas and Florida.
C.D.C. recommends that all pregnant women be screened for syphilis at the first antenatal visit, with additional testing at the beginning of the third trimester for women at increased risk or living in a community with a high prevalence of syphilis.
Treatment with penicillin is inexpensive and effective, but Dr. Bolan said that about 34% of women who gave birth to babies with syphilis have never received prenatal care.
"Congenital syphilis is a useless tragedy," she said. "We need all sectors of our society to help us if we want to reverse these trends – the health care and public health sectors, communities, policy makers, researchers and industry.
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