According to the British Association for Health and HIV (BASHH), every year at least one baby dies from neonatal syphilis and over the years the number of babies affected by this has doubled.
President of BASHH, Dr Olwen Williams, said doctors are seeing an increase in the number of women with sexually transmitted infections.
Official data indicated that between 2016 and 2017 there was a 20 per cent increase of syphilis cases in England. In 2018, there were 7,137 cases of syphilis diagnosed, up from 2,874 in 2008.
As a result of these record figures, Public Health England (PHE) has expressed its concerns about mother-to-child transmissions gradually increasing. Consequently, this could cost the NHS £3.5 million over the next five years as a knock on effect.
Dr Williams told the Health and Social Care Committee: “We are seeing neonatal syphilis for the first time in decades and neonatal deaths due to syphilis in the UK; I think that probably reflects some issues that we’ve got.
“We are seeing an increase in women who are presenting with infectious syphilis in pregnancy, and that has dire outcomes.”
Within the last year, health officials in the UK have dealt with at least three cases which were highly-resistant to normal treatment.
Dr Williams told the Committee: “We are going to land up in a situation where a simple disease, which is treatable with one injection and curable, will become an inpatient event of three days.”
Here at Harrow Health Care, we offer a series of sexual health screening packages. For further information click here https://harrowhealthcare.co.uk/our-services/sexual-health/
