The hand of a two-week-old newborn is in its mother’s hand.
Image: dpa
Syphilis can cause miscarriages in pregnant women and long-term effects such as blindness and deafness or bone deformities in their children. In the United States, cases among newborns have increased dramatically in recent years.
DThe US health authority CDC has expressed concern about a sharp increase in cases of syphilis in newborns in the USA. Last year, more than 3,700 babies were born with the sexually transmitted disease in the US, the agency announced on Tuesday – more than ten times as many as ten years earlier. The CDC emphasized that 90 percent of cases could have been prevented by testing and treating the mother during pregnancy.
Syphilis occurs in infants when the mother herself is infected and the disease is not treated for her. In pregnant women, syphilis can cause miscarriages and in their children it can cause long-term effects such as blindness and deafness or bone malformations.
The number of syphilis cases in the United States has reached “heartbreakingly high levels,” said CDC representative Debra Houry. Overall, there is a true epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases in the country. The number of syphilis cases is increasing in all age groups.
The health authority called on doctors to use every opportunity to examine pregnant women for syphilis – for example during emergency treatment or in support programs for drug users.
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