Continuing evidence that COVID-19 has influenced syphilis epidemiology in Rome

There are conflicting data on how COVID-19 has impacted STI epidemiology worldwide.1 In Rome, we observed a marked decrease in syphilis diagnoses during the first lockdown of spring 2020.2 Extending our previous observations, we compared syphilis diagnoses (primary/secondary/recent) during the whole of 2020 versus those of the previous 3 years (figure 1). While diagnoses by month were homogeneous in the prepandemic period (p for trend=0.40), 2020 showed a peak in June, a sharp and atypical decline …