The syphilis epidemics in Hungary 1985-2004, before entering the European Union.

In the decade prior to the turn of the millennium, great interest was raised, and rightly so, by the STD (syphilis and HIV/AIDS) epidemic that developed in the Eastern-Central European Region. Its coincidence with the far-reaching political and economic changes that took place at that time suggested a link between the two events.Hungary, where these infections had had low incidence before the period investigated, also experienced an increase in STD incidence.

Molecular detection of T. pallidum by PCR in seronegative cases.

For the molecular detection of Treponema pallidum authors introduced and used a nested PCR amplifying a conservative portion of the gene coding for the Tp 47 kDa membrane protein. PCR verified the presence of T. pallidum specific DNA in 5.