Health Departments and its community partners are seeing some results after their efforts to control syphilis in the community. Today they’re reporting the number of syphilis cases in San Antonio on a downward trend. What Metro health officials say they are seeing some other STDs actually on the rise.
When a newborn is born with congenital syphilis that newborn is born into a world of disabling and possibly life-threatening health issues. They’re gonna have mental disabilities they’re gonna have physical disabilities. It goes through blindness, deafness etc.
Some Organizations has been working to prevent this from happening and today they reported that congenital syphilis cases in San Antonio have dropped from 18 cases in 2012 to 10 cases in 2015.
and out of the 10 cases, 8 of those mothers had very little or no prenatal care. If a mother appears the last minute at the hospital having a baby and it’s congenital there’s nothing the hospital could do no public health. So what we’re doing is trying to intervene much earlier in their pregnancy. Testing for STD testing in the initial stage from nearby clinic can do a lot good to begin immediate treatment.
They’ve increased testing and treatment as well as increased their staff with more intervention specialists. The department also unveiled its new mobile clinic just last month which offers full-service STD screening and treatment. While syphilis cases have decreased. Chlamydia and gonorrhea cases appear to be on the rise here locally. We worked to find why as doctors and scientists dig deeper to see is it age related? because when we stratified it by age we really clearly saw that this is a college population.
Sexual Health is the most talked thing in college campuses across San Antonio. Although there are many misconceptions, it is certainly more than preventing pregnancy and avoiding sexually transmitted diseases in young minds.
