Thursday, November 9, 2023

America's broken health care system (syphilis edition)

 
Headline New York Times, 11/7/2023

The numbers:
3,700
Number of cases of congenital syphilis reported in 2022, eleven times the number reported 10 years earlier.

1,406
Number of babies born to woman who received no prenatal care.

231
Number of stillbirths caused by syphilis

51
Number of infants deaths caused by syphilis

90%
Percentage of new cases in 2022 that could have been prevented with timely testing and treatment, according to the Center for Disease Control. 
88%
Percentage of women who tested positive for syphilis who received inadequate, undocumented, or no treatment.

Excerpt:
Syphilis was nearly eliminated in the United States about 20 years ago, but rose by 74 percent, to 177,000 cases, between 2017 and 2021. Other S.T.I.s are also on the rise: In 2021, there were 1.6 million cases of chlamydia and more than 700,000 cases of gonorrhea.

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