This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal

Arch Dermatol. 2000;136:565-566.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

RATES OF primary and secondary (P&S) syphilis have been declining in the United States since the last national epidemic in 1990.¹ Syphilis causes substantial morbidity and mortality in the form of cardiac and neurologic disease, stillbirth and developmental disability from congenital syphilis, and by facilitating transmission of human immunodeficiency virus.^2-3 Syphilis is both preventable and curable and has been successfully controlled in most developed countries.⁴ In the United States, declines in P&S syphilis have been followed by epidemics occurring approximately every 7-10 years. During 1960-1990, these cyclical epidemics resulted in progressively higher peaks in morbidity.⁵ To evaluate the epidemiology of syphilis in the United States, CDC analyzed notifiable disease surveillance data for 1998. This report summarizes the results of that analysis, which indicate that in 1998 P&S syphilis declined to the lowest rates ever reported in the United States and that syphilis transmission increasingly is concentrated in fewer geographic areas.

. . . [Full Text of this Article]

Reported by:


CDC Editorial Note: