مرض الزهري (السفلس)

What is syphilis?

Syphilis is a highly contagious sexually-transmitted infection (STI). Compare to other STIs it is relatively uncommon, but cases are becoming more frequent.

Is it serious?

Syphilis can be effectively treated with antibiotics and is curable. If detected early and treated you are not likely to experience major symptoms.

Left untreated, however, the condition can progress to affect many areas of the body and can cause serious problems such as blindness, dementia, meningitis, heart problems, and possibly death.

What are the symptoms?

Symptoms start to appear 2-3 weeks after infection and can include:

After a few weeks symptoms can develop to include:

How is syphilis diagnosed?

If you experience the symptoms above, it’s important to visit your GP or local sexual health clinic promptly. They will perform a syphilis test, which usually involves:

What causes syphilis?

Syphilis is an infection that is passed from person to person through sex, which can include vaginal, anal, or oral sex. You can also get infected by sharing sex toys with someone who has syphilis.

If you are pregnant, you can pass syphilis to your unborn baby, which is why pregnant women are usually screened for syphilis around 8 weeks into pregnancy.

Finally, you can catch syphilis by sharing needles with another drug user who is infected.

How can syphilis be prevented?

You can reduce your risk of being infected if you:

How is syphilis treated?

Treating syphilis is straightforward and involves taking an injection of penicillin, a type of antibiotic. You can take a different antibiotic if you are allergic to penicillin.

If you have had syphilis for longer than a year you might need more than one injection.

To prevent yourself from being infected again, you should avoid sex for two weeks after your injection.

Penicillin can cause flu-like symptoms such as a headache, muscle pain and fever, but these symptoms tend to only last for 24 hours.