“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. The agency found that the vast majority of the cases, nearly 90 percent, could have been prevented with better access to testing and treatment, a warning sign that vulnerable people are falling through the cracks of the American medical system.”
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“Syphilis is treatable with antibiotics, but if left untreated in pregnant people, the STD can cause stillbirth, miscarriage and infant death. Infants who don’t receive treatment could also develop blindness, deafness, developmental delays or skeletal abnormalities. In 2022, the infection caused 231 stillbirths and 51 infant deaths.
“It’s particularly difficult to get your head around the increases when we know that this is preventable,” Bachmann said. “If a pregnant person is screened and treated in a timely manner, we really should not have any syphilis in babies.””
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/07/congenital-syphilis-spike-cdc-00125791