Impact Of Antenatal Syphilis Screening And Treatment On Congenital Syphilis Outcomes (Stillbirth)

Overview

Develop and validate a Syphilis module for the TLO model to represent maternal syphilis during pregnancy and its potential consequences for the fetus/newborn.

The module will initially focus on getting the core disease mechanics correct before proceeding to calibration, intervention scenarios, and full epidemiological validation.

Scope

The module currently represents:

• Syphilis infection during pregnancy
• Pre-existing syphilis at pregnancy entry
• Syphilis disease stages:
  • Primary
  • Secondary
  • Early latent
  • Late latent
• Disease progression between stages
• Maternal treatment
• Incident infection during pregnancy
• Vertical transmission to the fetus
• Congenital syphilis
• Syphilis-associated stillbirth
• Relevant maternal and newborn outputs

Current validation

A dedicated tests/test_syphilis.py test file has been added to test the core behaviour of the module, including:

• Module initialisation and parameter loading
• Pre-existing infection assignment
• Syphilis stage assignment
• Incident infection
• Disease progression
• Treatment
• Vertical transmission
• Congenital syphilis
• Large-population simulation smoke testing

Next steps

• Complete review of the core disease mechanics
• Resolve any remaining mechanical issues identified during review
• Confirm the module's interaction with PregnancySupervisor, CareOfWomenDuringPregnancy and NewbornOutcomes
• Calibrate baseline prevalence and stage distribution
• Add intervention and screening/treatment cascade outputs
• Develop intervention scenarios
• Perform epidemiological validation
• Prepare the module and methods documentation for review