Congenital syphilis jumped tenfold over the last decade

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| Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is calling for “urgent action” to address a tenfold rise over the last decade in cases of congenital syphilis — when the life-threatening infection is passed to an infant during birth.
“We need to do things differently because obviously what we’re doing now is not working,” WHAT THE REPORT SAID Congenital syphilis, which was nearly eliminated at the turn of this century, jumped 755 percent over the last decade, according to CDC data released Tuesday, reaching 3,761 cases in 2022.
There is also a national shortage of the only medication approved to treat syphilis in pregnant people: Benzathine penicillin G. Bachmann said the agency is advising providers to save what they have for pregnant patients and use other antibiotics for other syphilis patients.
The agency is also asking doctors to offer antibiotics to people who test positive for syphilis on a rapid test before waiting for a confirmatory test result from a lab, given the current epidemic and to make more of an effort to test and treat the sexual partners of patients so they don’t become reinfected after treatment.