Syphilis and affected communities : community-based effort to eliminate syphilis in the United States

In 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (CDC) together with other federal, state, and local partners, initiated the Syphilis Elimination Effort (SEE), a national initiative bringing health care providers, members of community-based organizations, religious leaders, policy makers, and activists together to eliminate syphilis in the United States. The goals of this initiative are to reduce the number of primary and secondary (P&S) syphilis cases in the United States to 1,000 or fewer \u2013 0.4 cases/100,000 people \u2013 and to increase the number of syphilis-free counties to at least 90 percent. The National Plan outlines five strategies to accomplish these goals: increase monitoring and tracking of the disease, strengthen community and partnership involvement, rapidly respond to outbreaks, raise community health awareness, and expand clinical and laboratory services.200