Infectious Disease Alert Updates

ABSTRACT

Even a group of relatively young, healthier adults with COVID-19 (with a mean age of 42 years), who were followed in the outpatient setting, experienced a surprising frequency (39%) of residual complaints at seven to nine months following their acute infection.1 These included fatigue (20.7%), loss of taste and/or smell (16.8%), dyspnea (11.7%), headaches (10%), difficulty concentrating (5.9%), insomnia (5.7%), and memory loss (5.6%). [...]COVID-19 occurred, and public health funding for sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinics and contact tracing was diverted. Based on early reports, it is estimated that we are going to see a 100% increase in syphilis cases from 2020 to 2021;and some authors predict an explosion of STDs in the next five years — the result of a nightmarish storm of diminished public health funding and lots of people “sheltering” for COVID-19 but apparently not for sex. * What’s the problem? Transmission may occur in the absence of visible disease. * These authors examined the frequency of Treponema pallidum (TP) deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) detected by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (targeting the polA gene) in blood, pharyngeal and anal specimens, and urine (as a proxy for urethra) as a marker of infectivity.