Syphilis cases increase

Syphilis cases in the country have skyrocketed. A study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) revealed that nearly 300,000 encounters in Chicago emergency rooms for syphilis testing showed a dramatic increase in screening and diagnosing of the disease.

"Most people diagnosed had no symptoms, which suggests that symptom-based testing strategies alone could miss opportunities to diagnose and treat people with syphilis," the NIH explained.

In that regard, the institute explained that the study was conducted in a large university emergency department in urban Chicago. It detailed that improved syphilis diagnostic strategies will be essential to reach populations such as pregnant women and people with limited access to medical care.

"In the current study, the team introduced a syphilis screening strategy that offered optional syphilis tests to anyone whose electronic health record indicated they were between the ages of 18- and 64-years-old, had no documented HIV diagnosis, and had not been screened for HIV within the past 12 months," they highlighted.

Already, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had warned in January that reported cases of syphilis rose 80% in the United States between 2018 and 2022 (from 115,000 to more than 207,000), continuing a decades-long upward trend.