The University of Mississippi Medical Center issued the following press release.
Efforts to bring down Mississippi’s alarming rate of congenital syphilis the past few years is receiving some much-needed help this month.
Thanks to a $1 million grant from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, a collaborative effort at the University of Mississippi Medical Center will launch a yearlong intensive initiative to increase syphilis awareness, testing and treatment – with a specific focus on preventing and treating syphilis in pregnancy.
“It’s a nationwide problem but it’s especially problematic here,” said. Dr. Thomas Dobbs, dean of the John D. Bower School of Population Health at UMMC. “And our numbers might be higher since the detection and reporting of STIs (sexually transmitted infections) was significantly less during the pandemic years.”
In 2021, Mississippi ranked sixth in the nation for syphilis incidence, at 28.1 cases per 100,000 people, and fourth nationally on congenital syphilis incidence, at 182 per 100,000 live births. Congenital syphilis involves the infection of a baby from a mother who is already infected.
Between 2017 and 2021, the congenital syphilis rate rose by 220 percent nationwide, while the rate skyrocketed by a staggering 6,641 percent in Mississippi, Dobbs said.
“Part of the reason for the continued spike is access to care. Another part is the pandemic preventing people from getting screened and the diversion of public resources needed to fight COVID. But research and modeling have shown us the increase preceded the pandemic. There’s been declining usage of condoms, plus available methods of birth control don’t necessarily prevent STIs,” he said
UMMC will partner with a variety of clinics and community-based organizations across the state to enhance the diagnosis and treatment of syphilis in the general population. The Medical Center will also work with the Mississippi State Department of Health to ensure completion of treatment of syphilis patients and partner tracing.
“Syphilis cases are increasing across the board in the state,” said Dr. Victor Sutton, chief of community health and clinical services at the Mississippi State Department of Health. “MSDH is looking forward to working with the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s John D. Bower School of Population Health to end this threat to public health. We have a Syphilis Task Force in place that will spearhead data collection and educate providers and the community, while also ensuring proper testing and treatment of individuals.”
In addition to a social media and advertising blitz throughout the state – targeting population centers such as metro Jackson, Hattiesburg and Desoto County as well as underserved populations in the Mississippi Delta – the initiative also aims to bring universal access to syphilis testing for all patients in the emergency room at the main campus and hopefully affiliate hospitals in Grenada and Holmes County, Dobbs said.
“Our emergency room physicians have been on the cutting edge of this sort of preventive health work in ERs for a while, especially with HIV and Hepatitis C,” Dobbs said. “Promoting universal syphilis screening in ERs has been a big conversation nationally within professional associations. Within certain characteristics of risk, some patients’ only access to the health care system is through the ER. They’re not getting regular checkups and certainly not thinking about syphilis routinely. But, what we see in cases where it’s diagnosed, we can see from their charts they were in the ER recently.”
The full collaboration to tackle the issue in the state includes SOPH, the Department of Emergency Medicine, the Telehealth Center of Excellence, Express Personal Health, the Division of Infectious Diseases, and the Myrlie Evers Williams Institute for the Elimination of Health Disparities. The institute will create a catalog of services and information on prenatal care, STI treatment, Medicaid eligibility and transportation to medical appointments, among other items, Dobbs said.
18 comments:
Target rich environment.
The rest of the country is in 2024. Mississippi is in 1924.
Call a plumber and check for drips.
This is a disease that health departments don't want to dick around with.
9:06 stole my thunder with precision. Came here to type that exact statement. Target Rich Environment indeed!
Perhaps people should stop having sex out of wedlock.
Make Ms. #1. You know you can do it.
I have one prevention for all STI's that won't cost the federal taxpayer one dime and it works 100% of the time. Of course, this cure has been around for nearly two thousand years but I guess I'm the crazy one!!
@10:23 One is tempted to call you Captain Obvious for such a simple statement. This problem is that so many people are blind to the obvious. In reality, you make the most cogent post of the day. Kudos to you. Don't have sex until you get married, marry someone who does the same, stay monogamous and the problem is solved.
I was not aware married folks are immune to spreading STDs. Less common sure. I agree.
But I don't think marriage fully stops any determined slut, male or female, from promiscuous tendencies.
Or its direct correlation to the solving the spread of disease in MS.
I sense that several of these posts are from the crazed Yankees with the portable loudspeakers, who're doing their best to destroy Fondren.
The rest of Kingfish's readers (you know: THE ONES WITH GOOD SENSE), on the other hand, know that a shot of penicillin will take care of the problem, and that sexually-active folk should be getting screened for such things (particularly when pregnant or contemplating pregnancy). Jackson Jambalaya readers also know, already, that Syphilis maps should be compared with obesity maps (and other sorts of maps I dare not mention). Comparing those maps (particularly those with "by county" in their titles) should make things obvious.
Presdenting the appeance of competency while actually ignorant:
The rest of Kingfish's readers (you know: THE ONES WITH GOOD SENSE), on the other hand, know that a shot of penicillin will take care of the problem
Multi drug resistent STDs, including syphillis, beg to differ with the conventional wisdom.
At least there won't be any travel necessary. Saves money on overtime, lodging, meals, padded comp time, etc.
I believe we already are. Thus the funding.
So the MS Covid clown Dobbs is now in charge of Syphilis. Great.
"..intensive initiative to increase syphilis awareness, testing and treatment – with a specific focus on preventing and treating syphilis in pregnancy."
1. Nobody is not aware of syphilis and its causes. When morals are absent and the flagpole is up and the receiver hitch is damp, that which precipitates the disease is going to occur.
2. Treating syphilis in pregnancy is a lost cause. Those who are predisposed to have or acquire syphilis are GOING to get pregnant. 90% (or more) of those who contract the disease fit into #1 above. Lack of morals, absence of parents, no home training, no self-value, no role models, no preachers, etc. And the flagpole gonna come-a-callin', the screen door or Pontiac back seat is beckoning and the opportunity is ripe. Those who get pregnant, while already having contracted the disease are not the group to be studied. You know they are pregnant and you know, by now, they have syphilis. What's to study, other than where they got it?
3. Be sure to have counselors on hand to mention abstinence and hand out condoms. I strongly recommend that the counselors not be unwed mothers, themselves. They are inappropriate role models in this situation.
Excerpts from Greenwood Commonwealth news article June 13, 1940: “A new record was set at the Greenwood Venereal Disease Clinic yesterday when 530 persons were present for diagnosis….It is believed that the Greenwood clinic is the largest syphilis clinic in the United States….There are 8 weekly clinics operating in Leflore County with 1800 persons under treatment.”
I don't know what the 'treatment' is, 4:56, other than penicillin, I've heard.
I remember in 10th grade our football team had to watch an 8mm film on syphilis. The whole plan was to scare the shit out of us, and it worked. (Until Friday night after the game rolled around).
The film, in sort of a cartoon style, showed an 'infected penis'. Then the next frame showed a long, silver tool being inserted into the penis. Then a hand twisted the tool and blades like fish-hooks emerged from all around the tool. Next a hand snatched the tool out of the penis causing a prolific flood of blood, skin, debris and snot-looking stuff.
Getting laid that nite was the furthest thing from our minds! I think it was all fake.
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