Question

Syphilis-

1.What are the symptoms of infection/disease

2.What methods are used to diagnose infection with this pathogen, and how do those methods work

3.Is diagnosis straightforward or not? Why or why not

Answer 1

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease which is a bacterial infection. It starts with a painless sore on rectum, mouth or genital areas.

1) symptoms of syphilis varies according to the stages

Primary syphilis

Painless sore ( chancre)which appear on genital areas or ,rectum   and rarely in lips or mouth .

Secondary stage

Rashes appear on different parts of the body.

Other symptoms like mild fever,sore throat, swallen gland , head ache, fatigue ,joint pain

Latent stages

No specefic symptoms will appear but infection will be there in the body

Teritiary stage

Tumors, blindness , deafness,memory loss, distruction of soft tissues, nerosyphilis ,heart disease, stroke, meningitis

2) diagnosis

Blood test : this help to find the presence of antibodies against the syphilis bacteria that produce the infection. This test conform wheather the infection is a previous one or currently occured.

Cerebrospinal fluid test: spinal fluids are collected by lumbar punchure to test antibody presence.

Various methods used for checking antibodies are

Direct method

Dark fielf microscopy

Used in early stage. A microscope is uses to view the pathogen which is present in the samples or tissues of open sores.

Polimerase chain reaction

PCR will be useful in case of primary syphilis only and not in secondary. Swabs from the open sores are collected and examined.

Serological test method

■Non treponemal test ( screening)

These are indirect method used to find syphilis by detecting the antibodies (IgG,IgM) and also biomarkers from host cell damage, lipoidal antigen.

Rapid plasma reagin test : this helps to find the syphilis antibodies

Venereal disease research laboratory (VDRL): this check the blood and spinal fluid for antibodies.

■Treponemal test (confirmatory)

This test detect the antibodies to treponema palladium proteins.

▪Enzyme immunoassay test( EIA)

This test help to confirm syphilis by checking the antibodies presentbin blood. A postive result is confirmed if the vDRL or  RPR is positive

▪Treponema palladium particle agglutination assay(TPPA)

TPPA also test the presence of antibodies in blood.

▪Microheme agglutination assay (MHA TP )

This test confirm the syphilis causing pathogen from samples after getting a postive result from screening test.. It causes hemeagglutination of erythocytes.

▪ fluroscent triponemal antibody absorption(FTA ABS)

This finds the presence of antibodies after 3 weeks of exposure. Both blood and csf can be analysed by this method.

3) Diagnosis is not a straight forward one. This is because collecting blood or cerebrospinal fluid is followed by a screening test . If this appears positive , again a confirmatory test should be done to confirm the infection.