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NOTE: A surveillance case definition is a set of uniform criteria used to define a disease for public health surveillance. Surveillance case definitions enable public health officials to classify and count cases consistently across reporting jurisdictions. Surveillance case definitions are not intended to be used by healthcare providers for making a clinical diagnosis or determining how to meet an individual patient’s health needs.

Subtype(s)

  • Syphilis
  • Syphilis, primary
  • Syphilis, secondary
  • Syphilis, latent
  • Syphilis, early latent
  • Syphilis, latent unknown duration
  • Neurosyphilis
  • Syphilitic stillbirth
  • Syphilis, congenital

Clinical Description

A subcategory of latent syphilis. When initial infection has occurred greater than 1 year previously, latent syphilis is classified as late.

Subtype(s) Case Definition

Case Classification

Presumptive

Latent syphilis (see above) of a patient who shows no evidence of having acquired the disease within the past 12 months (see Early Latent Syphilis) and whose age and titer do not meet the criteria specified for unknown latent syphilis

Related Case Definition(s)