Health officials say syphilis is at all-time low in United States

<br>PITTSBURGH (AP) _ When a Pittsburgh suburb experienced the beginnings of a 30-case syphilis outbreak last year, state health workers met those suspected of fueling the surge _ drug users and prostitutes

Friday, October 18th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

PITTSBURGH (AP) _ When a Pittsburgh suburb experienced the beginnings of a 30-case syphilis outbreak last year, state health workers met those suspected of fueling the surge _ drug users and prostitutes _ on the streets.

Health workers delivered education, free penicillin and, above all, confidentiality. By July, the mini-epidemic in New Kensington, which saw a local infection rate more than 90 times the national average, had run its course. There have since been no new cases reported in the city of 14,700, 20 miles from Pittsburgh.

Quick responses to outbreaks, bolstered by a public-awareness push the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention begun in 1998, are likely to put the sexually transmitted disease on the endangered list nationwide by 2005, the CDC says.

``It really comes down the groundwork. The people on the ground, walking and talking'' to those infected with syphilis, said Richard McGarvey, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Health. ``Syphilis is fairly easy to treat if you can get people to get tested and treated.''

Syphilis is most prevalent among prostitutes, addicts who trade sex for drugs and among homosexual men, experts say. It can make those infected far more susceptible to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The disease is spread only by sexual contact. It generally begins as a sore, then develops into a rash, but can be cured in those early stages with a two-week regimen of penicillin, McGarvey said.

Left untreated, syphilis can damage the heart, brain, nervous system and other organs.

After peaking at 20.3 cases per 100,000 people in 1990, the U.S. rate bottomed out at 2.2 cases per 100,000 people in 2000 _ the lowest since the government started tracking the disease in 1941.

The CDC believes that number could drop to 0.4 cases per 100,000 _ or 4 in 1 million _ by 2005 with continued education and vigilance, said spokeswoman Jessica Frickey.

While the CDC stands by those projections, there are signs that complacency is hurting the effort to stamp out the disease.

The CDC won't release national numbers for 2001 until next month, but officials in New York City and Detroit have already said they had large increases last year _ and Detroit's problems are continuing to grow this year.

Detroit officials counted 245 syphilis cases through July 30 and are projecting 500 by year's end. In 2000, all of Wayne County, Mich., which includes Detroit, had 288 cases and a rate of 13.7 cases per 100,000, according to the CDC.

New York had 282 cases of syphilis last year, up from 117 in 2000, according to city officials.

Officials suspect that public awareness and the vigilance of medical professionals fell along with the rate of infection.

``Things kind of look like they go away, so you forget to watch out for them,'' said Jo Valentine, the nationwide syphilis elimination program coordinator for the CDC.