Syphilis

Syphilis is a bacterial infection that’s become increasingly common in Aotearoa New Zealand.

It’s a sexually transmissible infection (STI) – which means it can be passed on through sexual contact – but it can also be passed from a pregnant person to their pēpi/baby through the placenta.

About half of the people who get syphilis have no symptoms at all so they have it without realising and can spread it to others. This means that some people don’t get tested and miss out on getting treatment.  

While syphilis is very easy to catch, it can be treated with prescribed antibiotics. 

Do I need an STI test?

Syphilis is a bacterial infection. It can enter through the genitals, anus, throat, or mouth but can spread through the body. It's very easy to catch and many people with syphilis don’t notice symptoms.

You can get syphilis from having unprotected sex. This includes vaginal sex, anal sex, or oral sex without external or internal condoms or oral dams. You can also get syphilis through close skin-to-skin contact – like when you're naked with someone.

If you’re pregnant, syphilis can be passed onto your pēpi/baby through the placenta. This can cause miscarriage, stillbirth, or infect the baby – with serious impacts on their health, growth, and development if the syphilis is not treated. 

Syphilis can be treated with antibiotics, even if you're pregnant.

If it’s not treated, syphilis can be a serious threat to your health and cause damage to your brain, spinal cord, and heart.

Learn more about syphilis on Healthify

Many people don’t have any symptoms when they first get syphilis, while other people only experience mild or moderate symptoms. That’s why it’s important to get STI tests regularly. 

Syphilis symptoms appear in stages.

The first symptoms include:  

• A sore or ulcer (known as a chancre) on your vulva, vagina, penis, anus, testicles, genital region, or your mouth, tongue, or throat
• The sore may be painless and difficult to notice 

If it's not treated at the first stage of infection, syphilis can cause more symptoms later.

Read more: Later stages of syphilis 

If you get syphilis, it won’t show up on a test right away. It can take up to three months. Find out more about when to do your STI test. 

To test for syphilis, you need to have a blood test done at a laboratory. 

If you don’t have STI symptoms, you can request a syphilis test through this website.

Request a test

After you have done the blood test, you will be contacted with your results within a week.  

• If your test is negative (you don’t have syphilis, or you tested too soon for the infection to show up), we’ll send you a text message
• If your test is positive, we’ll call you to talk about your test result and next steps

Another option is to get tested at a local laboratory or other testing provider. 

If you have symptoms of an STI, make an appointment with:  

• your usual doctor 
• a medical centre 
• Sexual Wellbeing Aotearoa  
• a sexual health clinic 

Find a provider

Syphilis can be treated with antibiotics, even if you're pregnant. This might include more than one dose and some ongoing checks to ensure the treatment has worked. You'll usually need to see a sexual health service to get treatment for syphilis.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, syphilis is a notifiable disease. This means that health professionals need to report all positive cases anonymously. Your personal details are kept confidential. They do this to reduce the risk of further spread, to understand how the disease is spreading, and to understand how effective control measures are.

If you’re diagnosed with gonorrhoea, your treatment provider will start contact tracing. This means asking about who you’ve recently had sexual contact with to find out who may have been exposed, and asking them to get tested. Many people do this themselves, but some people prefer to get their treatment provider to help.

If you requested a test here

If you have requested a test through Get Tested NZ and you test positive, we’ll be in touch with you to talk about your result and next steps.

If you got tested somewhere else

Talk to the provider or organisation where you did your test to find out what their process is.

• Don’t have sex until seven days after you finish your antibiotic treatment for syphilis and until your lesions are completely healed (this can take up to three weeks)

• It’s safest not to have sex while you’re having treatment – and to wait until your partners or sexual contacts have also been tested (and treated if needed). If you do have sex before you finish your treatment, use condoms or oral dams. 

• If it's safe, tell people that you have had sexual contact with recently that they need an STI test or treatment. 

The safe way to protect yourself from syphilis and other STIs is using condoms or oral dams every time you have sex.

Using lube with condoms helps to prevent the condom from breaking during sex by reducing friction. Lube can also make sex more pleasurable for some people.

More about safer sex

You can also protect yourself from syphilis (and chlamydia) by taking medication.

Doxy-PEP (doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis) is an antibiotic medication some people can take after unprotected sex to reduce the chance of getting chlamydia and syphilis.

Many STIs don’t have obvious symptoms, including syphilis. You may not know that you have syphilis but can still pass it on to your partners or sexual contacts.

It’s important to get tested for STIs anytime you have sex with a new person, or before and after unprotected sex.

When to get tested