FORT WORTH, Texas — Texas is leading the nation in new cases of a devastating and completely preventable disease: congenital syphilis.
Congenital syphilis refers to cases of syphilis that are passed from a mother to child during pregnancy. Left untreated, the disease can cause miscarriages, stillbirths and early infant death. For the children who do survive, untreated syphilis can lead to meningitis and other brain infections, blindness and deafness, liver disease, severe anemia and more, said Dr. Kjersti Aagaard, an expert in obstetrics and infectious diseases.
But each case is preventable.
