Washington, DC – On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provided the first look at 2022 congenital syphilis numbers, revealing a 32% rise in cases in just one year. Tuesday’s publication shows a total of 3,761 congenital syphilis cases in 2022, including 282 cases that resulted in stillbirths or infant deaths. The report, issued as a part of a Vital Signs report on missed opportunities for prevention, reveals the critical need for federal funding and intervention. David C. Harvey, Executive Director of NCSD, issued the following statement: 

“The number of entirely preventable congenital syphilis cases in America is appalling and reflects a collapse of the health systems we rely on to keep families safe. This shameful crisis is 20 years in the making and is accelerated by a perfect storm of funding cutbacks and bureaucratic red tape.  NCSD demands an investment of $1 billion to restore funding from debt ceiling legislation and cutbacks to the STI system, increase testing and treatment, and creation of a White House syphilis response coordinator as part of the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy.”  

“Historically, just one single case of congenital syphilis has been considered the red flag event to indicate the breakdown of a community’s public health. These 3,761 new congenital syphilis cases shock the conscience, but they are the predictable outcome of STI public health funding cuts and a lack of willpower to solve this problem. This year’s congenital syphilis numbers will be worse due to ongoing shortage of Bicillin L-A, the drug used to treat syphilis, and workforce cuts in the debt ceiling deal.”     

“Rather than take emergency action on congenital syphilis, the Biden Administration has spent the past five months slow-walking a federal response through formation of a U.S. Department of Health & Human Services federal syphilis taskforce that is working on recommendations that won’t be ready until next year. What we need now is action, not bureaucratic red tape and recommendations. The 2022 congenital syphilis numbers are already four times higher than pediatric AIDS diagnoses at their peak in 1992 – a case level deemed horrific at that time that spurred a huge national response and allocation of millions of dollars for prevention, care and research.  Where is that response now?”  

“This crisis may have been 20 years in the making, but it cannot go on. Without an exceptional and immediate investment by the Administration and Congress, we have no hope of protecting our communities from this growing emergency,” says David C. Harvey, Executive Director of the National Coalition of STD Directors (NCSD).    

Background: Congenital Syphilis 

Congenital syphilis is a syphilis infection that is passed from a pregnant person who has syphilis to the fetus during pregnancy. Congenital syphilis can cause stillbirth and infant death or result in lifelong disabilities. Congenital syphilis is preventable with timely testing and treatment with the antibiotic Bicillin L-A. Although the CDC’s Vital Signs only highlights congenital syphilis cases from 2022, the congenital syphilis crisis has been further exacerbated in 2023 by a shortage of Bicillin L-A, the only antibiotic that can safely treat pregnant people with syphilis, and by cuts to the STD workforce.   

Background: Recent STD Workforce Cuts  

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress allocated more than one billion dollars in funding to strengthen the public health workforce over a five-year period. Disease intervention specialists (DIS) are public health workers who do contact tracing, investigate disease outbreaks, and connect people to testing and treatment services. Three years into the five-year funding, $600 million has been invested to hire more than 3,000 community health workers who serve every state and local jurisdiction. During debt ceiling deal negotiations, Congress eliminated funding for the remaining two years, a total cut of $400 million and those 3,000 jobs.