BOSTON (AP) An outbreak of syphilis in Massachusetts, which is concentrated in Boston, follows a reemergence of the sexually transmitted disease in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, with the bacterial disease especially evident in gay communities, health officials said.
Of the 197 cases reported in the Bay State last year, 113 patients told disease investigators they contracted syphilis through sex with other men. In the early 1990s, syphilis overwhelmingly was found in the hetrosexual community, and gay men accounted for fewer than 1 percent of all infections.
''We're in new terrain,'' Jean Flatley McGuire, director of the state's HIV/AIDS Bureau, told The Boston Globe in an interview published Monday. ''We're dealing with a new generation that hasn't seen the same kind of death and destruction, and an older generation that has tired of the challenge it takes to be careful. And we're going to have to figure out a new strategy in this context.
''What we've got to recognize is that this isn't going to go away overnight,'' McGuire said.
While syphilis is easily treated with a shot of penicillin, it can result in brain damage and other serious health consequences if left untreated for years.
''Untreated syphilis can cause damage to virtually every organ in the body, from the eyes to the knees,'' said Dr. Alfred DeMaria, the state's director of communicable disease control.
People with syphilis have sores that look like small cavities in the skin. While appearing relatively harmless, those sores can actually act as dangerous portals directly to the blood stream and, potentially, to the virus that causes AIDS.
''Once an infection is well-established in a particular population, it can spread very easily and quickly,'' said John Auerbach, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission. ''The challenge is always to mobilize when the numbers are small enough so that a disease does not become firmly entrenched.''
In 2001, Massachusetts recorded 105 cases of infectious syphilis. A year later, there was an 87 percent rise in the disease.
Through the first three months of this year, 52 infectious syphilis cases were reported, up from 32 in the same period last year.
A broad-based campaign to combat syphilis gets under way in May in the gay community, but a health advisory was issued to physicians across Massachusetts last week. That warning alerted doctors to the syphilis outbreak, and urged them to provide counseling to patients who might be at risk.
