{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.017424564385890354, 'fraction_numerical': 0.003824904377390565, 'mean_word_length': 5.593837535014005, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 1, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Rapid tests for maternal syphilis screening: effective and cost-effective.

Congenital syphilis continues to exert a major toll on humanity. Current estimates suggest an annual congenital syphilis burden of up to 1.5 million cases annually, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has recently called for the global elimination of congenital syphilis.1 The WHO action plan for congenital syphilis elimination is based upon four interconnected efforts of political advocacy, increased access to maternal and newborn health services, increased screening and treatment during pregnancy, and enhanced surveillance and monitoring systems.2 Congenital syphilis elimination will directly contribute to the Millennium Development Goals, endorsed by all member states of the United Nations, by helping to reduce child mortality and improve maternal health. Yet despite sustained calls for action from the international health community, maternal syphilis seroprevalence remains high, exceeding 5 to 10% in some developing countries. Programs for screening and treatment of infected women during pregnancy are incompletely implemented, even though detection of syphilis during pregnancy and treatment of those infected can prevent adverse pregnancy outcomes.3 In this context, the report by Rydzak and Goldie4 in this issue of Sexually Transmitted Diseases is a welcome contribution to global efforts to advance maternal syphilis screening in resource-poor settings, and stands to move the international health community one step closer to achieving the goal of universal screening during pregnancy. While the question of which syphilis test or tests to perform during pregnancy, and in what sequence, will continue to be debated, there should no longer be any debate over whether pregnant women should be tested. Indeed they should, and Rydzak and Goldie offer new evidence to support more extensive use of the new generation of rapid point-of-care treponemal tests. As these authors have shown, such tests are both effective in reducing congenital syphilis morbidity, and cost-effective relative to alternative testing strategies. The time is now to broaden our coverage of maternal syphilis screening, and rapid treponemal tests offer new hope for reaching heretofore inaccessible populations. Serologic Tests for Syphilis: Pros and Cons of Existing Approaches