Fighting Syphilis and HIV in Women and Children: Lessons from Uganda and Zambia
By: Edward Bitarakwate, Susan Strasser, Tabitha Sripipatana and Jen Pollakusky
Syphilis is often called a silent killer, because its symptoms frequently go undetected. But combined with HIV, it can be even deadlier – especially for women and children.
Approximately 12 million new cases of syphilis occur each year worldwide, and nearly 10 percent of all HIV-positive people are also infected with syphilis. In sub-Saharan Africa, co-infection of syphilis and HIV is a serious public health challenge, with women and young children among the most vulnerable groups.
Prevalence rates of syphilis among pregnant women can be as high as 17 percent. With no treatment, women are in danger of passing syphilis on to their infants. If mothers are also infected with HIV, a syphilis infection actually increases the risk of HIV transmission from mother-to-child. Pregnant women living with both HIV and syphilis are twice as likely to pass HIV on to their babies compared to a woman infected with HIV alone.Like HIV, syphilis is a major cause of morbidity and mortality among women and children in resource-limited settings. Untreated syphilis during pregnancy is associated with a number of negative outcomes, such as stillbirth, premature delivery, low birth weight and infant death.
Syphilis, however, is curable with an affordable and accessible antibiotic medicine – penicillin. And both HIV and syphilis in infants and young children are almost entirely preventable by stopping mother-to-child transmission of the diseases.
