Increasing Trends Of Infectious Syphilis In Women Of Childbearing Age In Australia

Background Syphilis in pregnancy can have devastating consequences with over half of untreated infections leading to serious complications. In Australia, an outbreak was detected in remote Indigenous communities in 2011, with recent increases in non-Indigenous heterosexuals. To understand the distribution and impact of these increases, we analysed notification trends in women of childbearing age. Methods National infectious syphilis notification data (2011–2018) for women aged 15–44 years were used to calculate notification rates per 100,000 by Indigenous status, age, remoteness and year, and congenital syphilis cases per 100,000 live births by Indigenous status and year. We determined trends in notification rates using Poisson regression. Results Between 2011–2018, there were 1391 and 909 notifications in Indigenous vs non-Indigenous women, with the rate 31 times higher (188 vs 6 per 100,000) in 2018, respectively. For Indigenous women, the highest rate was among women living in remote areas (522 per 100,000 in 2018) with increases in remote (174%), regional (808%) and urban areas (475%), p Conclusion Rates of infectious syphilis are increasing for Indigenous and non-Indigenous women of child-bearing age, with the greatest burden of disease in Indigenous women living in remote areas. Responses need to be delivered with further potency to control syphilis in Australia.