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The disease was nearly eradicated around 2000 but has been on the rise since 2012. Health officials partially blame the opioid epidemic.
Congenital syphilis is when syphilis is passed down from a mother to her fetus. The disease can cause miscarriages and stillbirth. For newborns, it can result in brain and nerve problems, bone deformities, meningitis and death.
California has the third highest rate of congenital syphilis, after Georgia and Louisiana. Outbreaks vary in size and scope, but health officials agree there are at least two common factors contributing to the problem everywhere: the opioid epidemic and lack of prenatal care.
“If someone is actively engaged in substance abuse, they’re not thinking about their health care,” says Kern County's Smith.
Women who use drugs, particularly opioids like heroin and methamphetamine, are more at risk of contracting syphilis because it can be transmitted through needles as well as sex. Karen Landers, medical director for communicable diseases at the Alabama Department of Public Health, says that pregnant women using drugs are less likely to seek prenatal care and therefore learn they have syphilis. Unless treated with antibiotics early in a pregnancy, syphilis has a 50 percent chance of infecting a baby.
CDC data shows that overdose deaths involving opioids began to rise sharply in 2013, the same year congenital syphilis started to come back. Before that, overdoses were actually steady after years of gradually increasing.