Increase in Syphilis ‘Potentially Quite Serious'

The spike in syphilis cases reported by health officials yesterday ends a leveling-off period in New York City for a sexually transmitted infection that doctors once thought they could eradicate.

The 260 cases reported during the first three months of 2007 compares with 128 during the same period last year, the city's Health Department reported. Men accounted for 96% of new cases, and most occurred among the homosexual population. The 10 cases reported by women, meanwhile, signal the potential for further increases among that group, health officials said.

"Syphilis is still around," the Health Department's assistant commissioner for sexually transmitted disease prevention and control, Susan Blank, said. "Indeed, this is potentially quite serious and we need to move sooner rather than later," she said.

Syphilis is a bacterial infection spread by sexual contact. It can be treated with a single dose of penicillin, but left untreated it can cause brain and nerve damage, and sometimes death.

A syphilis epidemic attributed to the 1980s introduction of crack cocaine peaked in New York City in 1990, when 4,265 cases were reported. That number decreased steadily until about 2001, when the city reported 282 cases, compared with 117 in 2000. Cases continued to rise until 2005, when the number started to drop off. New York City's syphilis rate, at 7.2 cases for 100,000 people, was more than double the national average, three cases for 100,000, in 2005.

Yesterday, public health experts offered up several factors that could explain the recent spike, including risky sexual behavior with multiple partners. Some also expressed concern about the potential crossover between HIV-positive patients and syphilis patients.

"It's a bit disconcerting in that this could be within a high-risk network," an assistant professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, Patrick Wilson, said.

In response to the spike, officials at the Gay Men's Health Crisis said they would run targeted advertisements to encourage screening for syphilis.

"It's a serious concern that needs a response," the director of the Institute for Gay Men's Health at GMHC, William Stackhouse, said.