Nation's top syphilis rate may be slowing

INDIANAPOLIS - The city's syphilis infection rate - the highest in the nation last year - appears to be improving, though health officials said Friday that more teen-agers are contracting the disease.

A report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month showed Indianapolis had 407 cases reported in 1999, or about 50 cases per 100,000 people.

Through the first nine months of this year, Indianapolis recorded 250 cases, compared with 292 during the same period of 1999. The drop is a sign that efforts to curb the disease are taking effect, said Dr. Virginia Caine, director of the Marion County Health Department.

''We feel very good about where we are,'' Caine said.

However, teens account for 17 percent of the cases this year - an increase from 10 percent a year ago, said Dr. Janet Arno, medical director of the Bell Flower Clinic, the county's clinic for sexually transmitted diseases.

State health department officials said most of Indiana's cases still are clustered in Indianapolis, but isolated cases are appearing in bordering counties.

The epidemic began in 1998, affecting primarily minorities living in the central Indianapolis. Caine attributed the drop-off to a program that screens jail inmates, emergency room patients and residents of high-risk neighborhoods for syphilis.

Caine and Mayor Bart Peterson blamed use of crack cocaine and other drugs, particularly among prostitutes, for the spread of the disease.