Congenital syphilis in the city of Vitória/ES in 2010-2020

Abstract

Introduction: Syphilis is a systemic infectious disease caused by Treponema pallidum and is a public health problem in Brazil, since it is epidemiologically growing in the Brazilian population. Objective: To describe the occurrence of congenital syphilis and the profile of reported cases in the population of the city of Vitória-ES. Methods: This was a descriptive study with a quantitative approach aimed at analyzing congenital syphilis. The study population consisted of all notifications found in the Notifiable Diseases Information System referring to congenital syphilis cases in the municipality of Vitória – ES in the period 2010–2020. Results: A total of 1,158 cases of congenital syphilis were reported in Vitória, where 36.4% were in the first trimester of pregnancy; most infants (95.7%) were diagnosed less than 7 days after birth. There was a predominance of mothers aged between 20 and 29 years (48.1%), and 61.8% of cases were recorded in brown-skinned pregnant women with low education. Prenatal care was provided to 76.2% of the pregnant women, but the treatment regimen was considered inappropriate in 54.1% of the cases. Conclusion: The large number of cases, despite failure in prenatal coverage with inadequate maternal treatment, point to poor quality of prenatal care, with congenital syphilis in the absolute majority of cases failing prenatal care. The findings indicate the need of improvements in the implementation of prenatal care that, if diagnosis and proper treatment occurs before the 36th week up to the 40th week, the case will be properly treated syphilis and will not be a congenital syphilis case.