Syphilis May Be on Its Way Out in U.S., CDC Says
Syphilis rates declined nationwide again last year and could mean the elimination of the disease in the United States by 2005 if the trend continues, federal health officials announced Thursday.
But officials at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that--without a sustained effort by federal, state and local health officials, as well as community leaders--progress could be reversed.
“We can’t let our guard down. We declared victory over syphilis in the 1950s and over other diseases, such as tuberculosis, and rates went surging up again,” said Dr. Judith Wasserheit, director of the agency’s sexually transmitted diseases division.
In its report, the CDC said that there were nearly 7,000 new cases of syphilis reported in 1998, an 86% drop from the peak year of 1990, when there were nearly 51,000 cases.
In 1998, cases dropped 19% compared with the previous year. Los Angeles County mirrored the national rate, also falling 19% and moving from ninth place to 10th in the nation in new cases.
Syphilis is caused by a bacterium, Treponema Pallidum, which is transmitted sexually through contact with a syphilis sore. It also can be transmitted from mother to unborn child during pregnancy.
There are several stages of the disease, including a later, hidden stage, without symptoms, when the organism can persist in the body, damaging internal organs and ultimately causing such conditions as paralysis and blindness.
The elimination of syphilis would be important not only in its own right, but because the disease is also a known risk factor in increasing the chances of transmitting the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS.
The CDC attributed the plummeting rates to a beefed-up effort by federal, state and local health officials and community-based organizations, as well as increased federal funding to support these programs.
Congress provided $10 million in fiscal 1999 for syphilis reduction programs and a CDC national plan calls for an additional $27 million in federal money to be spent on syphilis programs over the next five years.
“If we can build on the success that we have had so far, we should be able to eliminate syphilis in the United States by 2005,” Wasserheit said. “This would mean ridding the country of a disease that has been with us since this nation was established.”
Despite the encouraging news and an across-the-board decline among all racial and ethnic groups, dramatic disparities remain. Blacks, for example, continue to suffer disproportionately, being 34 times more likely than whites to develop syphilis. Still, the gap has narrowed dramatically, the CDC said, from rates as much as 64 times higher in the earlier part of the decade.
In Los Angeles County, the syphilis infection rate for blacks is 11 times greater and the rate for Latinos is twice that of whites.
