Data from the Arkansas Department of Health shows that cases of congenital syphilis — cases in which the disease is passed from infected mothers to their babies during pregnancy or childbirth — have increased drastically over the past few years.
The Arkansas surge is happening amid a similar rise in cases at the national level and around the world.
In 2017, ADH recorded 13 cases of the disease among newborns. The agency documented 69 cases in 2022 and 64 in 2023. While those numbers may seem petite, it is still a notable enhance over a low time period and cause for concern among health professionals as babies infected with the disease face severe – if not fatal – health consequences.
From 2017 to 2023, 23 infants in Arkansas died from the illness, according to the health department. Infants infected with the disease can experience low birth weight, an enlarged liver or spleen, blindness, deformed bones and meningitis. Some babies are stillborn, while others may die shortly after delivery.
Those deaths add to Arkansas’s dismal track record, with some of the highest rates of infant and maternal mortality rates in the nation.
To address the surge in cases, the Arkansas Perinatal Quality Collaborative, a partnership between the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the Arkansas Department of Health, launched a program to enhance detection of the disease among pregnant women.
“What we are doing is working with birthing hospitals and with outpatient care to make sure health care providers are doing everything they can to catch cases as early as possible and make sure women who are infected get treated during pregnancy,” Jennifer Callaghan-Koru, executive director of the Arkansas Perinatal Quality Collaborative and UAMS public health professor, told the Arkansas Times. “It really is so preventable.”
Increases in congenital syphilis are, of course, tied to increasing cases of the sexually transmitted infection by the same name. ADH also tracks syphilis cases, and data collected by the agency shows that reported cases have risen from 562 in 2017 to 1,426 in 2023, an enhance the health department describes as “steep.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that cases of syphilis in 2022 reached numbers not seen since the 1950s, the point when penicillin treatment began drastically reducing cases in the U.S. (Interesting fact: Hot Springs was once a mecca for syphilis treatment due to a belief the thermal waters might cure the disease.)
The World Health Organization tracked about 8 million cases among individuals ages 15 to 49 globally in 2022.
Arkansas health officials require pregnant women to be tested for the STI during their first prenatal visit and during their third trimester. But last year, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists updated its guidance, recommending that pregnant women also get tested when it’s time for them to give birth.
“Congenital syphilis cases are increasing at an alarming rate across the United States,” a statement from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said. Their data shows the disease among infants has increased 755% in the U.S. between 2012 and 2021. “Notably, two in five infants with congenital syphilis were born to people who did not receive any prenatal care. Therefore, it is important to make any health care encounter during pregnancy — including those in emergency departments, jails, syringe service programs, and maternal and child health programs — an opportunity to screen for syphilis.”
Part of the UAMS-led initiative in Arkansas is to update health care providers about the recent guidance, Callaghan-Koru said. Sometimes women might contract the disease during pregnancy, missing crucial windows for detection, or there might otherwise be encounters with medical professionals where the infection is missed.
There are 22 hospitals participating. Callaghan-Koru said the program is working to enhance testing in outpatient settings and emergency rooms where a high-risk patient who may not be seeking “routine prenatal care but getting care from an emergency department” would also be getting tested for syphilis.
Already the Great River Medical Center in Blytheville detected a positive case on admission that was initially negative during the first trimester, UAMS said.
“The landscape is changing, and so we need to be updating practices for that landscape,” Callaghan-Koru said. “Because of the resurgence of syphilis happening nationally and globally we need to be updating the clinical care to respond to that new health threat for pregnant women.”
