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| Vol. 25, No. 10 |
| June 1, 2003 |
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Syphilis Cases Increase in Houston By PORFIRIO VILLARREAL Houston Department of Health and Human Services Houston Department of Health and Human Services’ statistics indicate that infectious syphilis cases in Houston and Harris County last year rose 7.5 percent and nearly doubled among gay and bisexual men. “We saw tremendous and constant declines in the number of syphilis cases in the Houston area throughout the 1990s, so the reversal in downward trends is disconcerting,” said John Paffel, Sexually Transmitted Disease Prevention Program manager with the department’s Bureau of HIV/STD Prevention. New infectious cases – known as primary, secondary and early latent, or hidden, syphilis – jumped to 245 last year from 228 in 2001. The total number of syphilis cases, including people who progressed to the late stage of the disease, reached 969 last year, up from 899 cases in 2001. Among gay and bisexual men, the number of infectious syphilis cases last year increased to 116 from 59 in 2001. Overall, the number of syphilis cases among gay and bisexual men more than doubled last year to 227, up from 107 in 2001. The local increase among gay and bisexual men mirrors trends in other large urban areas such as New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Miami. The department urges medical providers, especially those who routinely treat gay and bisexual men, to conduct risk assessments to determine if their patients are at increased risk for syphilis. The department also urges providers to report syphilis cases. Syphilis greatly facilitates the spread of HIV during the disease’s primary stage. Syphilis is easily treatable with antibiotics. However, without adequate treatment, an infection may progress to the secondary stage when one or more areas of the skin break into a rash – usually non-itchy and most typically on the palms and soles. Other second-stage symptoms include fever, swollen lymph glands, sore throat, patchy hair loss, headaches, weight loss, muscle aches and fatigue. In most cases, syphilis goes undetected because the signs and symptoms are misinterpreted or unnoticed. If untreated, Treponema Pallidum, the bacterium that causes syphilis, remains in the body and begins to damage the internal organs, including the brain, nerves, eyes, heart, blood vessels, liver, and bones and joints. Untreated syphilis during pregnancy can result in a stillbirth or a baby’s death soon after birth. Syphilis cases peaked in Houston in 1991 when 4,726 cases were reported to the department, but by 2000, cases totaled 847, an 82 percent drop. The department reported decreases even as recently as early 2001 after a 38 percent drop in syphilis infections occurred between 1998 and 2000. Information on testing is available by calling the department’s HIV/STD Information Hotline at (713) 794-9020.
©2006 Texas Medical Center E-Mail: tmcinfo@texmedctr.tmc.edu URL: http://www.tmc.edu/tmcnews/06_01_03/page_15.html |