Turning the Tide: The NSCSS Task Force's Battle Against Rising Syphilis Rates
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released its 2022 Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) Surveillance Report providing U.S. data for nationally notifiable STI’s for federally funded control programs.
According to the report, syphilis cases (all stages and congenital syphilis) increased 80 percent from 2018-2022. More than 3,700 congenital syphilis cases were reported in 2022, reflecting an alarming 937 percent increase in the past decade, said Laura Bachmann, MD, MPH, Acting Director, CDC’s Division of STD Prevention in her announcement letter included in the report. She added that from just 2021-2022, nearly every state reported having at least one congenital syphilis case with Texas, California, Arizona, Florida and Louisiana presenting 57 percent of all reported congenital cases. “Tragically, these infections resulted in 282 stillbirths and infant deaths in 2022.”
Data collection for syphilis began in 1941. Steep declines in case rates in the 1940’s and 1950’s was likely due to the use of penicillin to treat infections. From 2011 to 2022, the rates of all syphilis cases increased every year. In 2022, a total of 207,255 cases of syphilis were reported in the United States. This total amounts to a 183.4% increase from 2018 to 2022 of congenital syphilis cases. Racial and ethnic minorities continue to be disproportionately affected with one in every 155 births in 2022 with congenital syphilis.
The CDC report concludes with the repeated message that more testing and more treatment is needed. “We must act now to mobilize and execute a whole-of-nation approach if we hope to turn the tide.” Due to the increase in syphilis rates, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mobilized a new National Syphilis and Congenital Syphilis Syndemic (NSCSS) Federal Task Force in 2023. The goal of the NSCSS is to address the syndemic of syphilis and congenital syphilis, reduce rates, promote health equity and coordinate responses between federal agencies and external partners. The task force is focusing its efforts on the states that make up the majority of the nation’s syphilis cases.
Hardy Diagnostics offers our customers serological testing methods that fall under the CDC’s recommended testing guidance to screen for and diagnose syphilis, both the traditional syphilis algorithm (RPR with reflex to treponemal antibodies) and the reverse syphilis algorithm (treponemal antibodies with reflect to RPR).
