Infectious syphilis -- rarely seen in New Zealand for decades -- is back with a vengeance, doctors said, warning it has the potential to become a serious public health threat. The clinical director of the Wellington Sexual Health Service, Jane MacDonald, said all sexually transmitted diseases were on the rise, but the sudden explosion in the number of infectious syphilis cases was "particularly worrying."
"In the last two years in Auckland and Wellington, we have seen four times the number of infectious syphilis cases than in the previous 20 years," she said.
At her Wellington clinic, there were five cases within a nine-month period last year, and there were already nine cases in the first five months of this year.
A study published in the New Zealand Medical Journal in March revealed that the number of people attending the Auckland Sexual Health Service with infectious syphilis more than doubled, with a total of 40 cases recorded between January 2002 and September 2004.
The majority of cases -- 74 percent in the Auckland study -- were among gay men who had casual sex, while in the Pacific region, syphilis is endemic in the heterosexual population.
The study's author, sexual health physician Sunita Azariah, said the increase "is a potential serious public health issue."
However, since syphilis is not a notifiable disease, its actual prevalence is unknown.
MacDonald said syphilis had been rarely seen in New Zealand for decades, except among people infected overseas.
"I've been working in sexual health since 1998 and I had never seen a case of infectious syphilis until last year."
