Shortage of antibiotics to treat syphilis hits as infection rate soars among homosexual men
A sharp increase in the incidence of
syphilis in the U.S. and Canada has led health authorities in both countries to
warn of a shortage of the antibiotic Bicillin and the Canadian Public Health
Authority to call for it to be reserved for pregnant women.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention based in Atlanta issued their advisory on April 29, reporting
the shortage nation-wide of Bicillin or Benzathine penicillin G, which it said
was not only “the recommended treatment for syphilis” but “the only treatment
option for pregnant women infected with or exposed to syphilis.”
Both American and Canadian health authorities blame
the rise in STD infection on the increase in anonymous sex facilitated by
social media.
Its Canadian counterpart went
further, recommending supplies be doled out first to pregnant women with
syphilis, then to infected men who could not be relied upon to submit to less
effective and more onerous treatment regimes, and third to pregnant women in
recent contact with infected men.
“There is no satisfactory alternative
to penicillin in pregnancy; strongly consider penicillin desensitization in
patients reporting anaphylactic reactions to penicillin,” the Canadian advisory
stated.
Ironically, 97 percent of people with
syphilis are men, according to the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, and more
than 90 percent are “men who have sex with men.” The rise in syphilis
infections in Vancouver has led the authority to launch an ad campaign via
buses, bulletin boards and dating sites urging men having sex with men to get
checked for STDs every three months.
Syphilis in pregnant women can injure
or kill their unborn babies. But the penicillin alternatives to Bicillin
involve daily intravenous injections. Bicillin requires one injection, though
it still carries the risk of sending pregnant women into shock.
The rise in syphilis is
international. An Associated Press story earlier this year reported a “national
spike” in syphilis in the U.S. but focused on a 128 percent increase in Las
Vegas over the past three years.
In Canada, according to the British
Columbia Center for Disease Control, the infection rate for syphilis
has doubled from 4.4 per 100,000 (or 23,766 cases) to 9.3 per 100,000 in
2014 (for 59,922 cases). Meanwhile, chlamydia and gonorrhea—both far more
common—saw rate increases around 50 percent.
Both American and Canadian health
authorities blame the rise in STD infection on the increase in anonymous sex
facilitated by social media. A recent outbreak of gonorrhea in Alberta led its
chief public health officer, Karen Grimsrud, to tell a late April press
conference, “The use of social media to make an anonymous connection, very
quickly, we believe is driving this particular outbreak. When people don’t know
their sexual partners’ identities, it makes it difficult for public health to
contact partners, as far as setting up testing and treatment.” Alberta has
experienced an 80 percent increase in gonorrhea from 2014 to 2015, with the
trend continuing upward this year.
A 2011 article co-authored by the
U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health about a
general drug shortage in America indicated it was international, growing, and
attributable to many factors including problems with manufacturing and
distribution, natural catastrophes, government price restraints and fluctuations
in demand.
