Prevalence of syphilis in general and high risk population in Tirunelveli

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease which seemed to have disappeared or had been    controlled over the years has now been re-emerged as a major public health problem. The World Health Organization estimated approximately 12 million new cases of syphilis in adults     worldwide.1 The World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for the serological diagnosis of syphilis  recommends the use of rapid plasma reagin test and   Treponema pallidum haemagglutination assay as standard tests for screening and diagnostic purposes.2The baseline    information studies on STI prevalence in Tirunelveli which are necessary to formulate control strategies are  lacking .Therefore the present study was carried out to   determine the prevalence of syphilis in   Tirunelveli. MATERIALS AND METHODSA total of 100 sera were obtained from general population , another 100 sera from high risk population were subjected to RPR, TPHA.  RESULTS Out of 100 individuals in general population, one was reactive by RPR and none was positive by TPHA. Out of 100 individuals in high risk population three were reactive for RPR and among them one was positive by TPHA.  CONCLUSION In this study the prevalence of syphilis in  general population in Tirunelveli was found to be nil. The prevalence of syphilis in high risk  population was 1 in Tirunelveli. It is concluded that the   prevalence of syphilis is reduced and it may be due to the   increased awareness among the people due to high literacy rate and easy availability of drugs.