Reporting venereal disease.

Abstract

Recently, a resident at one of the nation's leading hospitals diagnosed dark-field positive, primary syphilis in a young man. Immediately after the diagnosis was made, the doctor telephoned his local health department to report the case and request epidemiologic assistance. The patient was interviewed that same day by a trained venereal disease health department representative. As a result of the interview, five sex contacts were located and examined. In one, secondary syphilis was diagnosed at the local health department clinic. This infected patient, in turn, was interviewed for her sex partners, and in three additional young men diagnoses of either primary or secondary syphilis were made, while a fourth was found to have been previously treated for primary syphilis by a private physician—the private physician had not reported the case to the health department. When the medical history of this unreported patient was studied, it became apparent, from reviewing the