Question

14. What organism causes syphilis? How can it be treated and prevented? Describe the stages of syphilis including the order in which they appear and the symptoms of each stage.

Answer 1

1. Treponema palladium is the microorganism which causes syphilis. It is a chemoheterotrphic and spiral/helical/coil shaped bacteria.

2. It is mostly transmitted during sexual activities between homosexuals or heterosexuals.
So, to prevent one has to avoid sex with unknown partners and infected partners.

Treatment with penicillin in the early stages of syphilis will cure syphilis. But it will not cause a permanent cure. There are chances of reoccurrence.

3. Stages of syphilis :

When an individual had sex with an infected partner there are chances of infection of syphilis.

Upon infection bacteria will create sores or chancre.

Following are the stages of syphilis:

Primary syphilis: In this stage painless sores or chancres will appear with in 21 days on genital parts, mouth and lips. These sore will disappear with in 42 days. This is an early stage to identify and treatment has to be initiated otherwise it may lead to further worse condition.

Secondary syphilis: In this stage, symptoms like rashes will appear on different places of the body, sore throat, fever, headache, hair loss and fatigue will be identified. This will last for few more weeks. Treatment has to be initiated otherwise microbe will be in the body in the Latent phase.

Latent syphilis: In this stage clinical symptoms will not appear physically but internally microbe may damage cell organs. It will lasts upto 20 to 30 years. Treatment has to be done during this stage.

Tertiary syphilis: This stage appears only after 20 to 30 years later. It leads to severe complications
like heart diseases, mental illness, blindness, neurological problems and congenital problems which leads to life threatening conditions.

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