Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - Wednesday November 28, 2001
Paul Simao
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention attributed the decline to an ongoing national campaign aimed at improving surveillance, screening and coordination of syphilis prevention and treatment programs.
The Atlanta-based CDC said that 5,979 cases of primary and secondary syphilis, or 2.2 cases for every 100,000 people, were reported in the nation in 2000, representing a 9.6 percent drop from the previous year.
Primary and secondary syphilis are the initial stages of the disease, when it can be cured with antibiotics. The rate of tertiary syphilis, the final and most destructive stage of the disease, was not available.
"Syphilis rates in the United States have declined dramatically over the past four years indicating significant progress in our syphilis elimination efforts," said Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, director of the CDC.
But Koplan noted there were still a significant number of communities where the disease remained a public health threat, highlighting the need for an acceleration of prevention and treatment efforts.
Syphilis, if left untreated, can cause arthritis, heart disease, madness and death. It also increases the likelihood of transmission of the virus that causes AIDS and can lead to miscarriages, stillbirths and severe infections in newborn babies.
If caught in its primary and secondary stages, syphilis can be cured.
Tissue damage in the final stage of the disease is irreversible.
In 1999, the CDC helped launch a national campaign to wipe out the disease, which last peaked in 1990. Since then, syphilis rates have fallen by about 90 percent.
Federal health officials hope to reduce primary and secondary syphilis to less than 1,000 cases, or 0.4 percent per 100,000 people, and increase the number of syphilis-free counties to 90 percent by 2005.
About 80 percent of counties reported no syphilis last year. Twenty-one counties and Baltimore accounted for half of all cases last year. Cook County, which includes Chicago, had the nation's highest rate of syphilis at 6.3 cases per 100,000 people.
CDC officials said they were particularly encouraged by results from syphilis elimination programs in Davidson County, Tennessee, Marion County, Indiana, and Wake County, North Carolina, where outreach education, surveillance and response strategies led to sharp drops in infection.
"Through such innovative programs, these three sites have experienced more than twice the rate of decline seen in the rest of the nation," said Dr. Ronald Valdiserri, deputy director of the CDC's National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention.
Health officials generally recommend abstinence, the use of condoms and the reduction of risky behavior, such as having sex with anonymous partners, as ways to prevent the transmission of syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases.
Symptoms of syphilis generally include a sore at the point of contact, usually the genitals, which disappears in about two months and is followed about six weeks later by a generalized rash, low-grade fever and malaise that may last a few months.
Symptoms then disappear during a latent period that can last years.
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