The influence of the No Syphilis Project on congenital syphilis admissions between 2018 and 2019

Abstract

Introduction: The syphilis epidemic in Brazil, as evidenced by the Indicators and Basic Data on Syphilis in Brazilian Municipalities, published and updated annually by the Ministry of Health, shows that the growing number of cases dates back to 2010 and 2019 was the first in the long series of ten years to show a retreat. Over the years 2017 and 2018, from an agreement signed between the Brazilian Ministry of Health, the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), policies to fight syphilis related to diagnosis, treatment, prevention and management are being implemented. Objective: The objective of the work was to test the hypothesis that the No Syphilis Project has influenced the decline of Congenital Syphilis hospitalizations in Brazilian municipalities since May 2018. Methods: This is an ecological study that compared time series of Congenital Syphilis hospitalizations before and after the implementation of the No Syphilis Project in the Priority municipalities for the project and in Other municipalities. The variables were analyzed by the Chi-square test to rule out the randomness of the results. The series were also analyzed by Linear Regression to measure the degrees of correlation between them. Results: Significance was identified for the reduction of admissions by congenital syphilis occurred after the implementation of the project (p<0.00001). The coefficient of determination R2 among the variables that measured admissions for congenital syphilis in the Priority municipalities and in the Other municipalities fell in the period from 0.884 to 0.261 attesting to the disassociation of the series from the project’s performance. Conclusion: The results obtained in the work are compatible with the effectiveness of the actions developed by the No Syphilis Project in the fight against congenital syphilis in Brazil.