LOS ANGELES _ Roberto Rocha has been yelled at and called names. Men have threatened to shoot him. He's visited jails, knocked on doors and approached strangers across L.A. County _ all in search of syphilis.
The centuries-old disease referenced in Shakespeare plays is making a comeback, and Rocha is trying to stop it, one infected Angeleno at a time. Though its initial symptoms are mild, syphilis can lead to paralysis, blindness and miscarriages if left untreated.
Every day, Rocha and dozens of other L.A. County public health workers get in their cars to search for people who might have been exposed to sexually transmitted diseases. They believe the only way to end an outbreak is to cure the infected and then find their sexual partners so they can also be treated.
But the leads Rocha gets on partners can be vague at best: He hangs out at a doughnut shop in the afternoon. He lives somewhere in a three-story apartment building across from a liquor store.
Rocha once parked near a freeway bridge where he'd been told he would find a patient's former partner, armed only with his nickname and a description of his tattoos. Rocha climbed through a hole in a chain-link fence.
"There were six people living under the bridge in a crevice, and I went in there asking for the person," he said. "He happened to be laying there in the corner and I talked to him. ... You see a little bit of everything with this job."
For years, work such as Rocha's has prevented infections and saved lives. Even though their main focus is STDs, public health workers may refer patients to rehab, help them get out of abusive relationships or find them doctors for other ailments.
But with syphilis rates in the United States the highest they've been in decades, experts are taking a second look at what's causing the new cases and also whether work such as Rocha's can actually halt the rapid spread of the disease.
