BERLIN, Oct 4 (AFP) - Germany continued to see a strong rise in cases of syphilis last year with a 20 percent increase in the number of people who contracted the sexually transmitted disease, a health institute said Monday.
According to the Berlin-based Robert Koch Institute (RKI), 2,932 people caught syphilis in 2003, up from around 2,275 cases the previous year.
It said in a report that three out of four people who contracted it were men who had sexual relations with other men. The number of women who caught the disease sank by 10 percent over the year.
Most cases of the illness were found in major cities, particularly in the capital Berlin and Hamburg, northern Germany, the report said.
The RKI said the rise was probably due to an increase in the number of sexual partners people had and expressed concern that it could be accompanied by a rise in cases of HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS.
However the institute said the hike "should probably not be interpreted as anything more than a short-term and temporary outbreak."
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