Soaring Congenital Syphilis Rates in U.S. Risk Lives of Thousands of Babies

Health advocates are calling on the Biden administration to declare a public health emergency over a steep rise in congenital syphilis cases. The easily treated infection has quintupled in 10 years and can have harrowing impacts on children. Congenital syphilis happens when a baby contracts syphilis from its mother.

Up to 40% of babies born to untreated mothers will be stillborn or die. Others can be left with severe birth defects such as bone damage, anemia, blindness or deafness, and neurological devastation. Rates of the disease have reached a nearly 30-year high just as supplies of the preferred medication, called Bicillin L-A, are in short supply. Read more from The Guardian here.