Source: BBC News, Sydney, By Frances Mao
Less than a decade ago, doctors in Australia believed they were close to eliminating syphilis from remote indigenous communities – the centre of national efforts to fight the disease.
Since then, however, the sexually transmitted infection has grown into an outbreak spanning three states and a territory.
Doctors say six babies have died from congenital syphilis since 2011.
During the same period, they say the outbreak overwhelmingly affecting indigenous Australians has risen from about 120 people to more than 2,100.
Health experts have characterised it as a crisis, saying the nation faces a “big task” to bring the problem under control.
How did this happen?
The majority of syphilis sufferers in Australia are young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who live in regional areas in the nation’s north and centre, doctors say.
Indigenous health experts, including Associate Prof James Ward, issued a call in the Medical Journal of Australia in 2011 to try to end syphilis in communities where it was a problem.
But Associate Prof Ward says it has instead “spiralled out of control”, spreading from one Queensland community to elsewhere in the state, as well as to the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia.