Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Dec 15;102(50):e36723.
doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000036723.

Seasonality of syphilis in males through the 2011 to 2019 mandatory surveillance period: A cross-sectional study in South Korea

Yeong-Jun Song  1 , Hoyong Choi
Affiliations

Seasonality of syphilis in males through the 2011 to 2019 mandatory surveillance period: A cross-sectional study in South Korea

Yeong-Jun Song et al. Medicine (Baltimore). .

Abstract

Although the effects of seasonality on syphilis have been discussed previously, no previous study has evaluated the seasonality of syphilis incidence by sex and age group. We examined the seasonality of syphilis incidence by sex and age group in Korea from 2011 to 2019. The incidence of syphilis was calculated on the basis of Korea Diseases Control and Prevention Agency data, and an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model and seasonal and trend decomposition using Loess were used to analyze the seasonality of the incidence in relation to epidemiological factors. The annual age-standardized incidence rates of primary, secondary, and congenital syphilis were 21.1, 8.8, and 64.0 cases/million persons, respectively, from 2011 to 2019. The highest incidence rates for primary and secondary syphilis were observed among those aged 20 to 29, 13 to 19, and 30 to 49 years, but not among the lower age groups. In analyses based on the ARIMA model, all univariate time series showed the highest goodness-of-fit results with ARIMA for primary syphilis (1,1,2), secondary syphilis (1,1,1), and congenital syphilis (0,1,2) (2,0,0) models. This study suggests that the incidence of secondary syphilis shows a summer seasonality for males and the highest incidence rate in the 20 to 29-year age group for both males and females in Korea. Public health action is needed to prevent an increase in syphilis incidence associated with sex, age group, and seasonal patterns.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no funding and conflicts of interest to disclose.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Annual age-standardized incidence rate (per 100,000) of syphilis by sex and age, 2011 to 2019.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Autocorrelation plot of the incidence of syphilis by wk and yr, 2011 to 2019.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Autocorrelation plot of the incidence of primary and secondary syphilis by wk and yr, 2011 to 2019.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Time-series analysis for the incidence of secondary syphilis in males, 2011 to 2019.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Prospective time series for forecasting the incidence of syphilis.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Heymann DL, APHA, ed. Control of Communicable Diseases Manual: An Official Report of the American Public Health Association. Washington: The American Public Health Association Press; 2008.
    1. Kenyon CR, Osbak K, Tsoumanis A. The global epidemiology of syphilis in the past century – a systematic review based on antenatal syphilis prevalence. PLoS NeglTrop Dis. 2016;10:e0004711. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ghanem KG, Ram S, Rice PA. The modern epidemic of syphilis. N Engl J Med. 2020;382:845–54. - PubMed
    1. Clement ME, Okeke NL, Hicks CB. Treatment of syphilis: a systematic review. JAMA. 2014;312:1905–17. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Workowski KA, Bachmann LH, Chan PA, et al. . Sexually transmitted infections treatment guidelines, 2021. MMWR Recomm Rep. 2021;70:1–187. - PMC - PubMed

Supplementary concepts