Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2020 May, 251(1)

Higher Incidence of Syphilis among Patients with HIV Infection: Population Study using Surveillance Data of Tokyo, Japan

YOSHIYUKI SUGISHITA,^1,2 JUNKO KURITA,³ TAMIE SUGAWARA² and YASUSHI OHKUSA²

¹Infectious Disease Control Section, Health and Safety Division, Bureau of Social Welfare and Public Health, Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Tokyo, Japan
²National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, Japan
³Department of Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Tokiwa University, Mito, Ibaraki, Japan

In Japan, the reported cases of syphilis have been increasing since 2011 especially in large cities such as Tokyo. The objective of this study was to evaluate the risk of HIV infection for syphilis co-infection on the population of Tokyo, Japan. We analyzed data of syphilis cases obtained from additional surveillance by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in 2018, including those with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection as well as data of HIV/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) cases during 1985-2017. We calculated the incidence of symptomatic syphilis cases among HIV-infected or non-HIV-infected individuals. Similarly, we calculated the incidence of syphilis, including asymptomatic cases, among each population. The relative risk of HIV infection for syphilis, including or excluding asymptomatic syphilis cases, was estimated. The relative risk was calculated by dividing the incidence of syphilis in the HIV-infected population by that in the non-HIV-infected population. Of the 1,775 syphilis cases reported in 2018, 172 cases were infected with HIV, 575 cases were uninfected, and the remainder were either unknown or not reported. The cumulative number of HIV/AIDS cases during 1985-2017 in Tokyo was 9,629; among them, 172 were co-infected with syphilis. The relative risk of HIV infection for syphilis was estimated as 423.29 if asymptomatic syphilis cases were included, and 372.37 if they were excluded. These results showed an extremely high risk of HIV infection. Since many syphilis cases have unknown or unreported HIV infection status, reduction of these cases might contribute to more reliable estimation of HIV infection risk.

Keywords —— HIV; men who have sex with men; population-based study; relative risk; syphilis

© 2020 Tohoku University Medical Press

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Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2020, 251, 39-46

Correspondence: Yoshiyuki Sugishita, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, 1-23-1 Toyama, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-8640, Japan.

e-mail: yoshiyuk@gmail.com