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Syphilis is spreading increasingly in Germany
7,500 cases of syphilis
According to the RKI, around 7,500 syphilis infections were reported in 2017, 4.2% more than in 2016. The highest rates are in Hamburg and Berlin.
Among the sexual diseases more cases of syphilis are reported. Possible cause is a waiver of condoms; however, more infected persons are also detected than before. (Image: self-processing / SENTELLO / nazar12 / fotolia.com) Homosexual men especially at risk
Syphilis cases have been rising steadily since 2010 after declining in the 1980s. Exceptionally often, homosexual men become infected.
Why is syphilis spreading again??
In the 1980s, the rate of syphilis decreased as a result of safer sex in the wake of AIDS / HIV anxiety. Presumably today, many men refrain from condoms during sex more often than in the early days of AIDS, and according to surveys even with changing partners.
Syphilis is detected more often?
However, the increase in the number of cases of syphilis can also play a role more often than previously recognized. Today, people infected with HIV regularly undergo screening for diseases, and syphilis has often been diagnosed.
International phenomenon
Syphilis rates are rising not only in Germany but internationally. According to RKI, prevention, diagnosis and therapy must be further developed.
How does syphilis begin??
Syphilis often remains unrecognized, as it often shows no symptoms in the first stages, and sometimes occurring symptoms are nonspecific: In some patients, weeks after infection painless ulcers occur. Without treatment, fever, fatigue, muscle or head pain usually follow, and the lymph nodes swell.
The terror comes late
Only years after infection, the serious consequences come: damage to the brain or broken blood vessels.
How is syphilis transmitted??
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease. The infection with the bacterium Treponema pallidum occurs via sexual intercourse - vaginal, anal or oral. Possible, but rare, is an infection via blood contacts or by pregnant women to the fetus.
What happens without treatment?
Without treatment, the disease sometimes heals by itself or it persists, causing severe organ damage decades after infection, even destroying the brain and spinal cord as neurosyphilis. Then paralysis and irreversible mental disorders are the result.
How does the doctor recognize the syphilis?
If a sufferer with the early symptoms visits a doctor, which is often not the case, the doctor suspects syphilis from the genital ulcer and / or the swollen adjacent lymph nodes. Then he recognizes the pathogen with blood tests.
compulsory registration
Syphilis is a notifiable disease. If a lab detects a case of syphilis, it must report it to the RKI - without naming the patient's name.
therapy
Syphilis is curable, with penicillin, in allergies with other antibiotics.
Responsibility of those affected
If you have been infected with syphilis, be sure to inform your sexual partners. These should now be checked for infection. If the infection lasts a long time, you must also inform past partners.
A global disease
Syphilis is distributed worldwide with approximately 12 million new cases each year. Although the number of patients has decreased since the use of penicilin, it has been rising again since the 1990s. 90% of those affected live in developing countries.
Focus on major cities
In Western countries, the big cities are hotspots to get infected with syphilis. 84% of those affected become infected by homosexual contacts, and the proportion of men among those infected has increased from 60% since the 1950s to more than 85% today..
Return of syphilis disease
For 2017, the RKI registered a new maximum number of infections, but in 2014 there was a provisional maximum at that time 5722 new diagnoses in Germany - in 2009 these amounted to 2742. Thus, the syphilis in Central Europe is again relatively common.
coinfection
In Germany, like other industrialized countries, syphilis often occurs as a co-infection in HIV sufferers.
HIV and syphilis
Those who suffer from the immune disease HIV, in which the syphilis is usually much faster and often breaks out again when they take medication against it. HIV and syphilis transmission routes are identical, and sexually transmitted diseases should always be screened for coinfections.
Prevent syphilis
The renewed increase in syphilis infections is allegedly due to a less stringent use of condoms than in the 1980s, since HIV has lost much of its public perception. Those who use condoms during sexual intercourse greatly reduce the risk of contracting syphilis. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)