Abstract
Syphilis is a disease that is found all over the world that causes damaging effects to the fetus through vertical transmission. This study aimed to analyze the processes that trigger the vertical transmission of syphilis through gestational and congenital syphilis notifications. It is a cross-sectional study. The sample totaled 129 notifications of syphilis in pregnant women and 132 notifications of congenital syphilis in the city of Natal, from 2011 to 2015. Data were obtained from the Information System for Disease Notification. The Chi-square, Student’s and Fisher’s tests were used to verify associations of interest. Diagnosis of maternal syphilis was predominant in the third trimester of pregnancy. Only 1.6% of the pregnant women were registered with an adequate treatment regimen, of these 16.3% had the concomitant treatment with their partners. Of the affected children, 78.8% were registered as asymptomatic. The factors that trigger vertical transmission are related to the late diagnosis of the pregnant woman and sexual partner(s) and the deficiencies in clinical/therapeutic management in relation to the phase of the disease. Strategies of professional training should be adopted to notify and expand the provision of information for epidemiological surveillance, aiming to strengthen care, reduce vertical transmission and enable the continuous analysis of this problem.
Highlights
Syphilis is a major health problem which can be found worldwide, especially in underdeveloped countries
Focusing on the notifications of gestational and congenital syphilis showed the ineffectiveness of the methods necessary to control the disease for the population in this research
The factors that trigger vertical transmission are related to the late diagnosis of the pregnant woman and the type of sexual partnership, as well as the weaknesses in the clinical/therapeutic management in relation to the phase of the disease, all being factors that contributed to a high rate of 56.8% probability of vertical transmission
Summary
Syphilis is a major health problem which can be found worldwide, especially in underdeveloped countries. Among its damaging effects are the gestational and obstetric risks present in the occurrence of vertical transmission [1,2]. Congenital syphilis (CS) is a preventable condition through the control of cases of acquired syphilis in women and their sexual partner(s) during family planning or prenatal care. The failure to perform the actions recommended by the relevant health authorities contributes to an increase in the cases of CS and assumes at each event the role of triggering the occurrence of the illness. The rate of congenital syphilis in Brazil was 6.8 per 1000 live births and in pregnant women
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