By Destiniee Jaram, Local Media Foundation Fellowship
A panel discussed the resurgence of syphilis, a sexually transmitted infection (STI), in the U.S. during the session “Can Anybody Stop Syphilis’ Rising Tide?” at AHCJ’s Health Journalism 2024 Conference.
Moderator Keren Landman, senior health reporter at Vox, said the first syphilis epidemic was recorded in Europe during the late 1400s.There were very few treatment options until penicillin became widely available in the 1940s, sharply reducing the number of cases until the present.
In the year 2000, Landman said, syphilis in the U.S. was nearly eliminated. And then the number of cases began to rise. Since 2018, cases of syphilis have gone up 80%.
Cases increased from 115,000 in 2018 to more than 207,000 in 2022 — the highest number of cases since 1950 — Landman said. Rates of syphilis have historically been higher among men than women, especially among men who have sex with other men.
“The question is how we got here,” Leandro Mena, Owner and Senior Consultant of All-In Health Solutions, LLC, said.
Mena said that decreased condom use among gay and bisexual men, youth, and young adults could also account for the increase in syphilis cases.
In addition, the substance abuse epidemic has been an important factor in increasing syphilis exposure, Mena said.
“You’re not going to get syphilis from the act of drug use,” Stephanie Arnold Pang, senior director of government relations and programs at the National Coalition of STD Directors, said. “But [it’s] what is happening in that individual’s life around their drug use and addiction.”
Pang said a lack of sex education can also account for the increase seen over the past decades.
Landman said in late 2022, syphilis began to rise quickly, spreading among women of childbearing age for the first time. In the past decade, women have gone from a small fraction of cases to representing nearly a quarter of cases, she said.
The syphilis rate in people giving birth has more than tripled in 2022— rising from 87 per 100,000 births in 2016 to 280 per 100,000 births in 2022.
Babies born to women infected with syphilis often have developmental, neurological and cardiovascular problems Landman explained. Many babies do not survive long beyond birth if they survive to be born.
Stigma is also present for STIs, leading to people being less likely to get tested.
Mena said increased access to stigma-free health services is needed to address the growing number of syphilis cases seen across the United States.
Pang said “easy to get to, frequent and common” testing and treatments are needed to reduce the number of syphilis cases.
Destiniee Jaram is a general assignment reporter for QCity Metro, an online Black publication based in Charlotte, N.C. Jaram was a 2023 Local Media Fellow.
