Thursday, 10 March 2016

#117 Syphilis (English)


Syphilis

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by a bacterium. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending if the patient is at a primary, secondary, latent and tertiary. Syphilis is most commonly spread through sexual activity, and in 2013, the virus affected 315,000 people and two years ago it had almost 100,000 people affected therefore there are rising numbers in amount of syphilis.

There are different stages of syphilis: primary, secondary, latent and tertiary.

--In the primary stage, syphilis is normally acquired by sexual contact with someone that has been infected. A month after the sexual interaction, a chancre is created which is a painless ulceration. The most common point of the chancre is the cervix for women and the penis for men. Without having any type of treatment than the sore can persist for three to six weeks.

In the secondary stage, beginning stage of syphilis occurs for four to ten weeks after the first stage. --In the secondary stage, not only are sores present but reddish or pink rashes in the palms of soles if your feet and hands. Other symptoms may be fever, weight loss, sore throat and other rare symptoms such as liver inflammation and kidney disease. These symptoms usually leaves after three to six weeks.

--In the early latent stage, the symptoms of the previous two stages begin to disappear therefore late latent state is not as contagious as the early latent syphilis. The latent stage of syphilis begins once the sores are gone and the problem with this is that since there are no symptoms on the body, the infection continued on developing.

--In the tertiary stage it can occur 3-15 years after the sexual interaction with the infected person. In the late stages of the tertiary stage then a third of infected people develop tertiary disease. People with tertiary syphilis are not infectious.

How to treat Syphilis?

If a patient has early stage infections, then it can be treated with a small dose of penicillin however if a patient in later infections of syphilis then they will need to be given large doses of penicillin for more than 10 days.

How to transmit Syphilis?

Syphilis can be transmitted through sexual contact but also in pregnancy from mother to baby, in addition it can be transmitted through kissing as well as oral and anal sex. Syphilis occurs most commonly to gay sexual partners. Lastly, it can be transmitted due to unsterilized needles however the risk is very limited.

[Reference]
 
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