Syphilis cases are on the rise in Japan. There are even concerns about the collapse of medical care due to the lack of venereal disease specialists to treat them.
According to Japanese media daily Gendai, Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare announced that there were 8,349 new syphilis cases this year until last month. This is an increase of more than 30% compared to the 6,385 recorded in the same period last year.
If this trend continues, syphilis infections are 먹튀검증expected to reach 17,000 this year. Compared to 2013, when there were 1220 infections per year, the number of infected people increased more than 13 times over 10 years. In Japan, the number of syphilis infections exceeded 10,000 last year for the first time in 23 years.
Among Japan’s 47 prefectures (wide-area groups), there was not a single area where syphilis patients did not occur this year. Tokyo, the capital, had the highest number of cases with 2,052 cases, and Yamanashi Prefecture, which had the lowest number, also reported 12 cases. It is evaluated that syphilis is no longer a rare disease, not only in the entertainment districts and surrounding areas of large cities, but even in rural areas.
Syphilis is a bacterial infection spread mainly through sexual contact. Even if you get infected, there are cases where there are no symptoms or symptoms disappear soon after, so there is a risk of spreading without noticing it. If left untreated, serious symptoms can develop in the brain or heart. If a pregnant woman gets syphilis, it can lead to stillbirth, miscarriage, or problems with the baby.
In Japan, syphilis was rampant in 1950, infecting 200,000 people annually. After that, it rapidly decreased as the antibiotic penicillin became popular, but started to increase again about 10 years ago. In 2013, the number of infected people exceeded 1,000, and in 2017, the number increased to 5,000. The recent expansion is attributed to the use of entertainment establishments and the increase in sexual intercourse with an unspecified number of people online.
The problem is that there is a severe shortage of specialists in charge of sexually transmitted diseases. Director Yasuhiko Ogami, who runs a medical institution specializing in sexually transmitted diseases, said, “The increase in new infections of syphilis is going out of control,” and added, “The biggest problem is that there are not many doctors with rich treatment experience and specialized knowledge.”
The daily Gendai pointed out that as more doctors leave the field due to the aging of veteran sexually transmitted disease specialists, there is a concern about the collapse of medical care that cannot be received even if they want to receive treatment. Director Onoe emphasized, “It is not easy to have a system to treat rapidly increasing patients with sexually transmitted diseases,” and emphasized, “In the end, we have no choice but to focus on prevention.”