How is syphilis transmitted? Most often, the disease is transmitted during unprotected sexual intercourse with an already infected person, whether it involves intercourse involving vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse, or oral-genital intercourse. Contamination takes place during contact with the syphilitic chancre(s), one or more red pimples that appear on the genitals, anus or at the back of the throat.
How does the disease progress? The chancres evolve into a painless ulcer for several weeks, without symptoms, and heal spontaneously. This is the early phase of the disease, and this is the period during which the contagion is maximum. It lasts about a year. If primary syphilis has not been treated, secondary syphilis occurs. It is characterized “by highly contagious lesions occurring in the skin and mucous membranes. These lesions are very varied and misleading, taking on the appearance of a banal roseola, acne, chickenpox, psoriasis… which makes diagnosis difficult”, warns the French Society of Dermatology.
These lesions disappear after two years, but in the absence of treatment, the disease is always present. This phase can last several years, and lead to serious complications which appear within 10 to 30 years after the first contamination: “rupture of large blood vessels, neurological or psychiatric disorders, destruction of organs, even death”, details the online edition of the reference American medical manual, the Merck Manual.
How to protect against syphilis? Condoms at each report and regular screening for STIs are the only ways to prevent and detect the disease. Whatever the stage of its development, it is treated with benzathine penicillin G, used in a “delayed” form. “That is to say that the active ingredient of the drug is released gradually, effectively and constantly, in the body,” explains Medicare. Sexual partners should also be treated. You should also know that syphilis exposes you to an increased risk of HIV/AIDS infection through the lesions it causes. A “Three to five times higher risk”, specifies the Merck manual.
Note: syphilis can be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy, with a risk of transmission of 70% in case of early syphilis and 10% when it is late, and serious consequences for the fetus. However, in France, congenital syphilis is rare thanks to screening in pregnant women.
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