The Lancet reports that China is now seeing the rise in syphilis rate in the country with alarming intensity. It is noted that China virtually eliminated syphilis in the 1960s and 70s.
It reveals that reported rates have risen from 0.2 cases per 100,000 in 1993 to 5.7 cases per 100,000 in 2005. The study involved doctors from China’s National Centre for STD Control in Nanjing and from the University of North Carolina’s School of Medicine.
Syphilis is a chronic infectious disease caused by a spirochete (Treponema pallidum), either transmitted by direct contact, usually in sexual intercourse, or passed from mother to child in utero, and progressing through three stages characterized respectively by local formation of chancres, ulcerous skin eruptions, and systemic infection leading to general paresis.