Syphilis cases spike as budget cuts threaten efforts to contain outbreaks

Key Facts

A December survey by the National Coalition of STD Directors found that those cuts — if they take effect — would force public health departments to lay off more than 800 disease trackers in 2024 and another 190 in 2025.
Rebecca Scranton, the deputy bureau chief for infectious disease and services at the Arizona Department of Health Services, told POLITICO that if Congress moves forward with the cuts, they’ll have to cut their STD testing work in half starting next year.
Rachel Levine, the chair of the task force, told POLITICO that since last year the group has focused on promoting more timely testing, particularly of pregnant people, improving access to drugs people can take after a potential exposure, and more attention to racial disparities fueled by poverty and poor access to health care.
But Levine, a pediatrician by training, stressed that the vast majority of congenital syphilis cases are preventable if infections are caught and treated in time, which can only happen if more doctors get comfortable asking patients about their sexual history and testing them for the infection.