This is syphilis
The venereal disease has had an increase in the number of cases of infection in men, reports Danish BT.
The Danes have seen several years of decline in the venereal disease, but in recent years it has changed. From 2018 to 2020, cases have increased by 43.4 percent. It shows new numbers from Statens Serum Institut.
– Will be exposed more
– The increase in syphilis cases applies to men who have sex with men because they have sex in a different way. They often have many more partners, so they are exposed more, says Susan Cowan to Danish BT.
Cowan works as a ward doctor in the section for sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections at the Statens Serum Institut.
More specifically, the infection figures in 2018 were 311 cases, while in 2020 it was 446. The figures from last year have not yet been completed, but Cowan tells BT that they are not less than 600 cases.
Think the expansion is good news
At first glance, this does not sound like a particularly positive number, but Cowan thinks it is actually good news.
The reason for the increase is that the risk of getting HIV has decreased. Fewer get it, which is why more people have practiced more unprotected sex, according to Cowan. Thus, there is a greater risk of getting syphilis.
– It may sound a little nice when it is presented in this way. It is the same groups that get it, so why does syphilis rise when HIV cases fall? My best tip is that we have the best prevention against HIV in the past
The prevention against HIV, which Susan Cowan put forward, is the tablet PEP, which should be taken once daily. From 2018, they started distributing the tablets for free in several places in Denmark, which also explains why it is precisely after 2018 that more people have started getting syphilis.
– With PEP, you can have all the unprotected sex you want without getting HIV. And then you choose unprotected sex, because very few people want to use a condom. In the past, condoms were used because they were terrified of getting HIV. But if you use a condom now, you will not get syphilis, but condom-free sex has become quite normal, says Cowan.
According to hiv Norway one can take to writing tablets, PEP and PrEP. The tablets are two types of treatments that prevent the transmission of the HIV virus. PEP can be taken after one has been in a risk situation and PrEP is taken in advance, before a risk situation, to prevent a possible infection.
Sound the alarm about a new HIV variant
Get treatment
According to Lommelegen Syphilis can cause you serious health problems if left untreated. Syphilis is divided into different stadiums: primary, secondary, tertiary. Each stadium has different symptoms.
Syphilis is not a very common disease in Norway. 50 to 250 people become infected annually. In comparison, more than 26,000 cases of Chlamydia will be registered in 2019.
– Just as there has been an increase in the number of syphilis cases in recent years, and this is worrying, reports Elisabeth Lofthus, editor of Lommelegen.
The pocket doctor recommends contacting doctors in case of symptoms or suspicion of syphilis, or other sexually transmitted disease.