Seasonality of syphilis in males through the 2011 to 2019 mandatory surveillance period: A cross-sectional study in South Korea

Abstract

Although the effects of seasonality on syphilis have been discussed previously, no previous study has evaluated the seasonality of syphilis incidence by sex and age group. We examined the seasonality of syphilis incidence by sex and age group in Korea from 2011 to 2019. The incidence of syphilis was calculated on the basis of Korea Diseases Control and Prevention Agency data, and an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model and seasonal and trend decomposition using Loess were used to analyze the seasonality of the incidence in relation to epidemiological factors. The annual age-standardized incidence rates of primary, secondary, and congenital syphilis were 21.1, 8.8, and 64.0 cases/million persons, respectively, from 2011 to 2019. The highest incidence rates for primary and secondary syphilis were observed among those aged 20 to 29, 13 to 19, and 30 to 49 years, but not among the lower age groups. In analyses based on the ARIMA model, all univariate time series showed the highest goodness-of-fit results with ARIMA for primary syphilis (1,1,2), secondary syphilis (1,1,1), and congenital syphilis (0,1,2) (2,0,0) models. This study suggests that the incidence of secondary syphilis shows a summer seasonality for males and the highest incidence rate in the 20 to 29-year age group for both males and females in Korea. Public health action is needed to prevent an increase in syphilis incidence associated with sex, age group, and seasonal patterns.