There has been a rise in young women contracting syphilis recently following the STI outbreak in Ireland a top doctor has said.
And people can often confuse syphilis symptoms for a common cold or even Covid-19, she added.
Now Consultant In Genito-Urinary Medicine Dr Aisling Loy is urging people to come forward for STI screening amid the syphilis outbreak.
This week the HSE confirmed a national outbreak of early infectious syphilis (EIS) in Ireland.
The medical research has been under investigation since June 2021 and prior to the start of the pandemic, EIS cases were rising.
Health authorities have since said that the situation requires "urgent action" after a small decrease in cases in 2020 - coinciding with the first wave of Covid - has now reversed.
In 2019, there were 745 confirmed cases of EIS reported, a 54% increase from the previous year (484 cases).
The number of notifications decreased in April 2020 during first wave of Covid, but following this decrease, they increased throughout 2020, with a total of 562 cases reported in 2020.
While the data for 2021 is incomplete, indications signify that EIS notifications are increasing and exceeding those seen in the previous year. There have been 242 cases reported between January 1 and April 30, 2021.
Speaking on Newstalk Dr Loy said: "We were seeing a definite rise before the HPSC had collated the data to say that we had a national outbreak.
"We went to public health from the guide clinic and said we are seeing way more than we would be used to seeing and we were seeing a rise in young females especially which would be unusual for syphilis.
While lockdowns have meant that people are mixing, Dr Loy explained that Covid has led to sexual health services being impeded.
She explained: "Syphilis is very infectious and the problem with syphilis is it's not necessarily symptomatic in fact most people don't have symptoms.
"It can be passed unknowingly. There's been a decrease in access to services unfortunately due to Covid.
"Unfortunately for a lot of STIs including syphilis people don't have symptoms so they're onwardly spreading it without being screened.
"Just a small percentage will have symptoms, for everyone that we see with symptoms we know that there's a huge reservoir out there that aren't getting tested.
Dr Loy explained that symptoms often go unnoticed and can be confused as things like a common rash, swollen glands and even Covid-19.
And she warned it can have serious effects.
She added: "If they get symptoms they can be quite benign, things like a fleeting little ulcer which is usually painless or a rash which people will put down to a new detergent.
"Often by the time they think about going to see a doctor it's gone so they don't get tested.
"It can present like Covid so you can have flu like illness, people will go get a Covid test and it will come back negative but they don't think that could also have been syphilis.
"People think syphilis is something from bygone years that they had in the 1800s, but it's actually ver prevalent in our sphere in sexual health.
"About 20% of people who have latent syphilis will go on to develop serious problems. it can affect all systems in the body. We call it the great imitator.
"It can get into the brain, the neurosystem the eyes, you can get uveitis, you can get hearing problems and we've been seeing all these things in recent months.
"It can infect foetuses and you can have congenital syphilis that will pass through the placenta or at birth from mother to child which can cause serious harm and still birth in new borns so that was of concern to us that there was ladies who were more at risk that didn't realise it.
"About 90% of infections would be in men, about 60% of those are in men who have sex with men but we've seen an upswing from about 4% to 9% in young women."
Dr Loy urged people to come forward for screening which she explained is a very easy process.
She said: "You go onto sexualwellbeing.ie or SH24.ie and you click and order it out to you and you post it back, it's all free.
"There's huge stigma and embarrassment. This is what we do day in and day out. there's nothing we haven't heard before. We're not shocked that people have sex."
"Usually after a couple of weeks people are fine to resume normal sexual practices then we monitor their blood levels to make sure they're having an adequate response."
"Thankfully syphilis has not had any issues with resistance and penicillin still works. And if you're allergic to penicillin there are alternatives."
