Drug trafficking and prostitution networks are the bedrock of this infection which can lead to blindness, paralysis and dementia.
Syphilis is regaining ground in the United States. While the country thought it had eliminated it, the number of new cases is now higher than 20 years ago, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC).
Commonly known as smallpox or “Naples disease”, this sexually transmitted infection (STI) was diagnosed in 75,000 Americans in 2015. Nearly 25,000 of them had a primary infection, a period when the risk of transmitting the disease is the more important.
And if the vast majority of patients are men who have sex (MSM) with men (81% of cases), heterosexuals are not spared.
A trend also found in France. In the country, the number of people infected with the bacterium, pale treponema, has doubled since 2010, from 657 to 1,332. MSM account for 84% of early infections. And even without taking sexual orientation into consideration, men remain the most affected in the country. The cause: the condom is not used systematically and risky behavior is on the increase.
From homes to prisons
But in the United States, the reasons for this resurgence seem to be more complex and darker. In one long report in Oklahoma City, a conservative American city that suffered an outbreak last year, the New York Times tells how this evil spread in all the communities. Because whatever the age or the region of origin, the incidence of this STI is soaring.
The first alarm bells appeared in the city’s prisons. Last fall, a juvenile penitentiary center detected syphilis in 3 adolescents, the youngest was 14 years old. A first for more than 7 years for this detention center. These young people have assured that they do not know each other. The contamination therefore took place outside the establishment.
Then in February, a gang member detained in the city jail tested positive. He then reports having had 24 sexual partners in the past few weeks. Cocaine or methamphetamine were used as bargaining chips. In the United States, the spread of syphilis is one of the consequences of drug trafficking.
Delay in diagnosis and shortage of treatment
For the authorities in Oklahoma City, it then became almost impossible and very dangerous to access the sick to convince them to be treated. It is even more difficult to have access to their partners to offer them to undergo a screening test.
In addition to these obstacles, there is also the lack of knowledge of doctors. Some have never encountered this infection and do not know how to diagnose it. Worse, STI prevention and treatment centers are seeing their funding melt away like snow in the sun. The Trump administration has proposed to cut 17% of the budget allocated to these structures.
The American daily also underlines the difficulties in obtaining the treatment for more than a year. Only Pfizer provides the reference antibiotic. Avoidable disease which is very well treated, syphilis is therefore becoming the pet peeve in the United States.
So much so that the number of complications increases. The CDC has seen an increase in eye damage and cases of congenital syphilis (transmission from mother). As we would almost forget, untreated syphilis can lead to irreversible sequelae such as blindness, paralysis and dementia.
.
