Department of General Medicine, Juntendo University Faculty of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
Department of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, Tsukuba Memorial Hospital, Tsukuba, Japan.
PLoS One. 2024 Mar 27;19(3):e0298288. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0298288. eCollection 2024.
Some countries have reported a post-pandemic resurgence in syphilis prevalence, but trend data in the World Health Organization Western Pacific Region (WHO-WPRO), including Japan, are severely lacking. Thus, the present study compares the number of syphilis cases before and after the COVID-19 pandemic in some WHO-WPRO countries. In addition, temporal trends in the number of syphilis cases in Japan pre- and post-pandemic are described. Annual numbers of syphilis cases during the study periods from China, New Zealand, Australia and Japan were compared. Annual trends of the numbers of syphilis cases during the same study periods were examined in Japan. In 2020, the number of syphilis-positive cases decreased in all four countries. In 2021, though, China, Australia and Japan all showed an increase in the numbers of syphilis cases. However, the rate of increase in China (+2.8%) and Australia (+4.8%) was low compared to Japan (+36.0%). The number of syphilis cases in New Zealand in 2021 was 12.6% lower than in 2020. In 2022, the number of cases of syphilis in China was 7.4% lower than in 2021. The increase of syphilis-positive cases was approximately 6.3-fold higher in Japan compared to Australia (+66.2% vs. +10.5%) in 2022. In conclusion, post-pandemic resurgence of syphilis occurred in Australia and Japan, but not in China and New Zealand. The reason for the substantial increase in syphilis-positive cases in Japan remains unclear. Post-pandemic, prevention and control of sexually transmitted infections still require attention.
一些国家报告称，梅毒的发病率在大流行后出现反弹，但世界卫生组织西太平洋区域（WHO-WPRO），包括日本在内，的趋势数据严重缺乏。因此，本研究比较了一些 WHO-WPRO 国家大流行前后梅毒病例的数量。此外，还描述了日本大流行前后梅毒病例的时间趋势。比较了研究期间中国、新西兰、澳大利亚和日本的梅毒病例年数。检查了日本在同一研究期间梅毒病例数量的年度趋势。2020 年，四个国家的梅毒阳性病例数量均有所减少。然而，2021 年中国、澳大利亚和日本的梅毒病例数量都有所增加。然而，与日本相比（增加 36.0%），中国（增加 2.8%）和澳大利亚（增加 4.8%）的增长率较低。2021 年新西兰的梅毒病例数比 2020 年减少了 12.6%。2022 年，中国的梅毒病例数比 2021 年减少了 7.4%。2022 年，日本梅毒阳性病例的增加约是澳大利亚的 6.3 倍（增加 66.2%对增加 10.5%）。总之，梅毒在澳大利亚和日本出现了大流行后的反弹，但在中国和新西兰没有出现这种情况。日本梅毒阳性病例大幅增加的原因仍不清楚。大流行后，性传播感染的预防和控制仍需关注。
