HEALTH : Increase in Syphilis Reported

Syphilis has risen to its highest level since 1949 in the United States, with the resurgence of the venereal disease striking blacks hardest, government researchers reported today.

After decreasing in the early 1980s, the overall rate of the sexually transmitted disease increased 61% between 1985 and 1989, with the incidence disproportionately high among black women and black men and in the South and the District of Columbia, the researchers said.

The trends in syphilis transmission during the 1980s are “likely to be important indicators of changes in sexual behavior” affecting the course of the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, which causes AIDS, said Drs. Robert Rolfs and Allyn Nakashima of the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

While syphilis rates among Anglo men dropped 69% between 1982 and 1989, and rates for white women remained low and changed little, the rate for blacks jumped 132% from 1985 to 1989, the researchers reported in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.