Pregnant people, babies prioritized for syphilis antibiotics as Tacoma faces shortage
The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department is urging local doctors to save their medication used to treat syphilis, due to a shortage of the drugs.
The health department's advice is to reserve syphilis drugs for pregnant people and babies born with congenital syphilis.
There's a national shortage of the drug penicillin G benzathine (aka Bicillin L-A), which is also used to treat other bacterial infections, such as pneumonia or strep throat.
The drug shortage comes after syphilis cases quadrupled in Pierce County, between 2016 and 2021. Congenital syphilis (cases among unborn babies) increased from two in 2020 to 14 in 2021. The health department notes that syphilis is on the rise among all demographics, especially heterosexuals.
The rise in syphilis cases throughout Pierce County has prompted its health department to develop a new ad campaign, designed to spread awareness.
Syphilis cases have been on the rise in recent years. King County experienced a dramatic spike in cases in 2021 and 2022. Cases have risen five-fold since 2015 in cisgender women throughout King County.
One reason for the rise in cases, according to one health care worker who previously spoke with KUOW, is that cases of other diseases like HIV have gone down, perhaps causing people to ease up on protection, like condoms. Such preventative measures could also work against other diseases. Chlamydia rates in Washington state have gone up 85% since 2000. Gonorrhea cases have nearly quadrupled in that time. Read more here.
Pierce County health officials are urging sexually active people ages 45 and younger to get tested for syphilis because it's still present when someone isn't presenting symptoms, which include a skin rash, mucous lesions, swollen lymph glands, sore throat, patchy hair loss, fatigue, and headaches. Syphilis can spread to the brain and be deadly to both adults and unborn children if left untreated.
