Syphilis will continue to spread

Syphilis is primarily a man’s disease: The latest Numbers show by the Robert-Koch-Institute (RKI). The experts fear that the number of infections will continue to rise. Especially men who have Sex with men, are affected.

The RKI is assumed that the number of new Syphilis infections will increase in the coming year. The reason is the HIV-Präexpositions prophylaxis (PrEP), the infection should be from 2019 to statutory health insured persons with higher risk of HIV to the Fund’s performance. The could not tempt to protect themselves during Sex enough: Fatal, because PrEP does not protect against HIV, but other sexually transmitted infections (STI) such as Syphilis. "Here it will be important to establish a sufficiently frequent Screening for Syphilis and other important STI to diagnose this as quickly as possible and to therapieren«, the experts write in the current Epidemiological Bulletin. The current guidelines for PrEP provides an education and Syphilis testing for PrEP users before the start of the PrEP, and thereafter at an interval of three months.

In the year 2017 a total 7.476 Syphilis were reported to the RKI cases. The number of reported cases increased compared to the previous year by 4.2 percent. Are mainly affected men who have Sex with men: "In the case of messages with information on the risk of infection the proportion of cases that were probably transmitted through sexual contact between men, 83,5 Prozent«, according to the RKI. Almost half of them (47.6 per cent) is also infected with HIV. 55 messages (5.9 percent) came from men who had contacts with sex workers or sex workers. Only in 30 cases (6.7%) of the patients were female. In three cases the disease was transmitted during birth from mother to the newborn.

dh/PZ/NK