Syphilis Crossword Puzzle for Kids

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by a bacterium called Treponema pallidum. Syphilis is usually spread by sexual contact. However, a fetus can get syphilis from its mother while she is pregnant or during childbirth. This is called congenital syphilis.

There are four stages of syphilis: the primary, secondary, latent, and tertiary stages. In each stage, the signs and symptoms of syphilis are different.

In the primary stage, a person usually just has a wound on their skin, called a "chancre." In the secondary stage, a person usually gets a rash. In the "latent" stage, syphilis has few or no symptoms. If syphilis reaches the tertiary stage, which is the most severe, it causes many serious symptoms. These can include problems with the nervous system (the brain and nerves) and problems with the heart. Many people with tertiary syphilis will die if they do not get medical treatment.

Syphilis is usually diagnosed with blood tests. The bacteria that causes syphilis can also be seen under a microscope. Most people who have syphilis can be treated and cured with antibiotics.

By 1999, more than 12 million people around the world had syphilis. More than 90% of these people (10.8 million) lived in the developing world. Syphilis got much less common after penicillin became available in the 1940s. At that time, penicillin was used as a treatment for syphilis, and often cured the disease. Since 2000, syphilis is becoming more common again.

Stages of syphilis

When a person gets syphilis, the disease is in the primary stage. A person gets syphilis by having sex with a person who has syphilis. Usually, the person who has syphilis has infectious lesions on their genitals caused by syphilis. Touching or kissing these wounds during sex (including oral sex or anal sex) can give a person syphilis.

Later, a chancre (skin sore) usually appears at the place on the body that touched the infected wounds. The chancre can be painful. The most common type of chancre gets bigger and bigger until it becomes an ulcer.

Chancres can appear in places other than the genitals. In women, chancres most often appear on the cervix - the bottom of the uterus. Some people get no chancres at all. Many people who have secondary syphilis (40–85% of women and 20–65% of men) say they never had a chancre during the primary stage.

Around the place where syphilis entered the body, the lymph nodes usually get bigger about 7 to 10 days after the chancre forms. If the person does not get treatment, their wound(s) can last for three to six weeks.

If a person does not get treatment, syphilis will get worse. The secondary stage of syphilis will start about four to ten weeks after the person first got infected. Secondary syphilis can cause many different symptoms. The most common three symptoms are:

Cause

Syphilis is caused by the Treponema pallidum bacterium. Treponema pallidum is a species of bacterium which is shaped like a spiral: a spirochaete. There are different types of Treponema pallidum bacteria, which are called subspecies.

Scientists think that Treponema pallidum can only live inside humans. The bacterium cannot survive outside a human for more than a few days.

Syphilis is spread mostly by sexual contact or during pregnancy from a mother to her fetus. Syphilis can pass through undamaged mucous membranes, or through damaged skin. Because of this, syphilis can be spread through oral sex, vaginal sex, and anal sex. It can also be spread by kissing, if the person with syphilis has a sore in their mouth.

Only a very small amount of the Treponema pallidum bacterium needs to get into a person's body to cause syphilis. Not everybody who is exposed to primary or secondary syphilis will get the disease.

A person can get syphilis if they get a blood transfusion from someone with the disease. However, many countries test blood donations for syphilis. In countries that do not do this, getting syphilis from a blood transfusion is much more likely.

Diagnosis

It is hard for doctors to diagnose syphilis just from the signs and symptoms that happen early on, because many diseases can cause skin sores and rashes. Instead, they can diagnose syphilis by doing a blood test, or by looking at the blood under a microscope. Blood tests are used more often, because they are easier to do. However, blood tests cannot tell which stage of syphilis a person has.

Prevention

Not having sexual contact with a person who has syphilis is the best way to prevent getting syphilis.

If a person does not know if their sexual partner has syphilis, having safer sex can help protect them. For example, using a latex condom the right way lowers the risk of getting a sexually transmitted disease like syphilis. However, even if a person uses a condom, it is still possible to get syphilis.

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that the best ways to prevent syphilis are:

To be in a long-term relationship with a partner who does not have syphilis;

For both partners to be loyal in their relationship and not have sexual contact with anyone else; and

Treatment

Syphilis that is not complicated can usually be treated and cured by antibiotic medications.

Usually, people need just one dose of penicillin G or azithromycin. If a person cannot take either of these medicines (for example, because they are allergic to them), some other medications work too. For example, Doxycycline and tetracycline are two other possible choices; however, they cannot be used in pregnant women.

The Treponema pallidum bacterium has become resistant to many different antibiotics, including macrolides, clindamycin, and rifampin. These antibiotics no longer kill the bacterium.

Once a person is in the later stages of syphilis, the disease is harder to treat.

For example, if a person has neurosyphilis, they need antibiotics that will kill the infection in their central nervous system (their brain and major nerves). It is hard for penicillin G to get into the central nervous system. Because of this, a single shot of penicillin - which will usually cure early syphilis - is not enough to cure neurosyphilis. Instead, people with neurosyphilis usually need to be given large doses of penicillin for at least 10 days. Usually, they also need to get the medicine intravenously (through a needle placed into a vein) so it goes more directly to the central nervous system. If a person is allergic to penicillin, other antibiotics like ceftriaxone, doxycycline, or tetracycline can be used, but they have to be given over longer periods of time.

Epidemiology

In 1999, syphilis had infected about 12 million people. More than 90% of these people lived in the developing world.

Syphilis causes problems in 700,000 to 1.6 million pregnancies every year. Syphilis can cause a pregnant woman to have a miscarriage, a stillbirth, a premature baby, a baby with congenital syphilis, or a baby that dies before it is a month old. In sub-Saharan Africa, syphilis causes up to 20% of perinatal deaths (deaths that happen soon after a baby is born).

Syphilis used to be very common, and it caused sickness and death all over the world. It was very common in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. During the early 20th century, syphilis became less common in the developed world, because antibiotics were being used more and more. Syphilis kept becoming less common until the 1980s and 1990s. Since the year 2000, syphilis is getting more common again in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Europe, mostly among men who have sex with men.

In China and Russia, syphilis has become more common among heterosexual people since the 1990s. Studies say this is because of unsafe sexual practices, like having sex with many different people, prostitution (getting paid to have sex), and not having safer sex to protect against sexually transmitted diseases.

Over the 19th and 20th centuries, the symptoms of syphilis have become less severe (not quite as bad). This is partly because there are more treatments that work well, and if they are given early, syphilis does not get as bad. Also, the bacteria that causes syphilis has become weaker.

History

Nobody knows exactly where and how syphilis started. There are two major ideas about where the disease came from.

The first idea is called the "Columbian hypothesis." (A hypothesis is an educated guess about how something happened). This hypothesis says that when Christopher Columbus's crew came back to Europe after exploring the "New World", they brought syphilis back to Europe and spread the disease there.

The other idea is called the "pre-Columbian hypothesis." ("Pre-Columbian" means "before Columbus.") This hypothesis says that syphilis was already in Europe before Columbus, and people just did not realize that the disease existed.

While there is evidence that can be used to say that either of these ideas are right, there is more evidence for the Columbian hypothesis.

The first written records that talk about an outbreak of syphilis in Europe are from 1494 to 1495. The outbreak happened in Naples, Italy, when France was invading (trying to take over Italy). Because syphilis was spread by French soldiers who were coming back from Italy, at first it was called the "French disease."

Text adapted from the Simple English Wikipedia article “Syphilis” (revision 10898552, 2026-06-24), authors, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.