A Five Year Retrospective Study on Seroprevalence of Syphilis Among Pregnant Women at Saint Paul’s Millennium Medical College Referral Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
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Date
2019-10-10
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Syphilis is a chronic sexually transmitted disease caused by Treponema pallidum. It is transmissible by sexual contact with infectious lesions, from mother to fetus in utero, via blood transfusion and occasionally through breaks in the skin that come into contact with infectious lesions. If it is untreated, it progresses through 4 stages and can result in a number of adverse pregnancy outcomes such as low birth weight, death of the babies during early or late pregnancy, blindness, deafness and spontaneous abortion. In Ethiopia, syphilis prevalence increased from 1% in 2012 to 1.2% in 2014. In this study a five year Hospital based retrospective cross-sectional study was done to determine the seroprevalence of syphilis among pregnant women from September 2015 to July 2019 at Saint Paul’s Millennium Medical College Referral Hospital Ethiopia. A descriptive analysis was used to determine socio-demographic characteristics and seroprevalence of syphilis. A total of 393, pregnant women were selected by using random sampling method. From a total of 393 pregnant women, 2/393 (0.5%) were syphilis positive. The study shows a lower prevalence of syphilis compared to most studies done in Ethiopia. Socio-demographic characteristics such as age, and residence were used in analysis of this study. To reduce the magnitude of maternal syphilis in the community, sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention education and counseling, education on risky behaviors which exposes to sexually transmitted infection and routine antenatal care (ANC) services like screening and treatment should be strengthen.
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Keywords
Antenatal Care, Pregnant Women, Seroprevalence, Syphilis