In 2020, we’ve had horrific bushfires, a global pandemic and most recently, the devastating injustices on the topic of Black Lives Matter, but now, we can add a syphilis spike to the bloody list.
We spoke about the Black Lives Matter protests on this episode of It’s Been A Big Day For…
Victoria is having one hell of a bad time right now with no signs of the coronavirus pandemic slowing down, but authorities have issued another medial warning which seems to come out of nowhere.
State Chief Health Office Professor, Brett Sutton, has just released a public health advisory warning for congenital syphilis, as they’ve found that more than 1000 cases have been reported since 2014. Great, just great.
“Congenital syphilis caused by mother-to-child transmission of infection is an entirely preventable public health problem which has re-emerged in Victoria,” the advisory says. This type of syphilis usually occurs during pregnancy and can result in neonatal death, stillbirth, prematurity or low birth weight.
“This has occurred on a background of an increase in notified cases of infectious syphilis in both men and women over the past six years, with the majority of notified cases in women being in women of reproductive age with the potential for the condition to occur in pregnancy,” the advisory added.
According to the advisory, women with more than one sexual partner, female partners of men who have sex with other men, drug users and women of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent are at risk of the condition.
“All pregnant women should be tested for syphilis during routine antenatal testing in the first trimester,” Brett Sutton added before saying, “These tests should be repeated in any pregnant woman presenting at any stage of pregnancy with signs and symptoms suggestive of a sexually transmitted disease (such as a genital lesion).”
“Syphilis testing should be repeated at 28 to 32 weeks of pregnancy, and at delivery, in pregnant women who may be at high risk of sexually transmitted diseases.”
Additionally, syphilis has killed many famous people in history. Some of these people include American gangster, Al Capone, and influential authors Oscar Wilde and Guy de Maupassant Charles Baudelaire.
Read the full advisory here.
Always be in the loop with our snackable podcast breaking the biggest story of the day. Subscribe to It’s Been A Big Day For… on your favourite podcast app.