Instead of painful penicillin injections, syphilis can be treated by giving the patient azithromycin tablets, a macrolide antibiotic, reports the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Syphilis, known in many countries as the English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese and even Polish disease, continues to occupy an important place among sexually transmitted infections. It is possible that she came to Europe from America, although the characteristic appearance of the nose of one of the figures on the Wit Stoss altar in Krakow suggests that she may have been with us much earlier. Syphilis was first described in 1530 by Girolamo Frascatoro, who studied in Padua together with Copernicus. Later, many famous people suffered from it – including: Pope Alexander Borgia, the tsars – Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible, Polish kings – Jan Olbracht, Stefan Batory and Jan III Sobieski, the famous goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini, painters – such as Toulouse-Lautrec or Gauguin, many writers, to mention only Wyspiański, Baudelaire, Guy de Maupassant and Heinrich Heine. The syphilis-causing pale spirochete can have many serious consequences, but fortunately it seems completely incapable of developing resistance to penicillin. The problem is that long-standing injectable penicillin can cause allergic reactions, vials must be refrigerated and injections should be administered by trained personnel.
In a study conducted by Dr. Edward W. Hook III of the University of Alabama in Birmingham, penicillin (two injections) or azithromycin (four tablets) was administered to randomly selected patients (ages 18 to 55) from eight US centers and a group of patients with syphilis with Madagascar.
Of the 469 included in the analysis, 77,6 percent of patients were successfully treated with azathioprine, and 78,5 percent of patients with penicillin (PAP).