Syphilis Cases Surge Among Seniors in Chile: Instances Among Women Aged 60 and Older Doubled in Just Four Years

Original article: Sífilis se dispara entre adultos mayores en Chile: Casos en mujeres de 60 años y más se duplicaron en 4 años

At the 26th International Conference on AIDS (AIDS 2026), the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) issued an urgent health warning regarding the alarming rise of syphilis across the continent.

Regional estimates indicate that Latin America and the Caribbean account for 90% of the syphilis cases in the Americas, with 4.2 million new infections reported each year. This troubling trend directly impacts Chile, where statistics reveal an epidemiological pattern that necessitates a reassessment of current public policy focus.

According to the 2025 Annual Epidemiological Report on Syphilis, Chile, from the Epidemiology Department of the Ministry of Health, the notification rate has surged by 2.4 times over the past decade.

This rate reached a historic high of 55.2 cases per hundred thousand inhabitants in 2025, translating to 11,155 diagnosed individuals.

While the typical public health focus is on the population aged 20 to 39 years (which accounts for 58% of cases in the past five years), those aged sixty and older represent 13.9% of annual notifications.

The Invisibility of Epidemiological Risk 

The detailed analysis from Minsal’s surveillance shows that the most significant percentage increases in transmission rates have been consistently observed among older adults. The notification rate among women over 60 has doubled from 14.4 to 28.8 cases per hundred thousand from 2021 to 2025.

Meanwhile, the male population in the same age group has seen a steady rise in diagnoses, climbing from 419 cases reported in 2021 to 909 confirmed cases in 2025, resulting in a rate of 50.8 cases per hundred thousand men.

For individuals over sixty diagnosed with syphilis in the country, that figure reached a historic total of 1,545 people in 2025.

In light of this situation, Dr. Adele Schwartz Benzaken, Senior Global Medical Director of AHF, stressed that addressing these infections must not be divorced from everyday realities.

«HIV/AIDS is, and will always be, at the heart of AHF’s mission, but we cannot ignore a syphilis epidemic that is growing right before our eyes,» said the expert, noting that the asymptomatic nature of the bacteria facilitates its silent spread when regular check-ups are not part of preventive behavior.

Similarly, Francisco Rubio Olave, Advocacy Director of AHF for Latin America and the Caribbean, pointed out that the increase in syphilis diagnoses among those over 60 «highlights a silent demographic shift that reveals the need to direct prevention strategies and active screening towards the elderly.»

This reality is mirrored in the results of the National Health, Sexuality, and Gender Survey (ENSSEX 2022-2023), which indicates that only 10.4% of men and 8.6% of women aged sixty and older reported using condoms in the past year.

«These indicators show that the bias of current prevention campaigns perpetuates misinformation about a demographic group that remains sexually active but entirely unprotected,» warns the AHF Chile expert.

The Urgency of Democratizing Sexual Health

AHF Chile specialists argue that this concerning trend among those over 60 stems from deep sociocultural barriers and a complete lack of targeted sexual education campaigns aimed specifically at this group.

«Historically, government policies have maintained a pronounced youth bias, mistakenly assuming that sexual activity and exposure to infections diminish entirely with aging, which ultimately delays early screening for this demographic,» Rubio explains.

«The rise of syphilis is an epidemiological challenge from which our country is not exempted. This phenomenon is associated with a gradual decline in condom use in a context where other biomedical prevention alternatives for HIV have been prioritized, such as pre-exposure prophylaxis,» the specialist adds.

Finally, experts agreed that in order to curb the epidemic’s advance and eliminate the barriers hindering the screening for the bacteria, it is essential for the public system to coordinate efforts with civil society.

We will continue to provide updates.