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The story
Steruiz, the penicillin injection that’s the first-line treatment for syphilis, has been hit with both a voluntary recall over foreign-matter contamination and a manufacturing equipment breakdown — pushing the resumption of shipments back to the latter half of next year. Reported syphilis cases have surged from roughly 6,000 in 2020 to over 13,000 in 2025, and since mother-to-child transmission can cause stillbirth or “congenital syphilis,” the Japanese Society for Sexually Transmitted Infections is urging medical institutions to prioritize the drug for pregnant patients. On 5ch, some posters pointed to a structural problem — the drug’s low price makes the supply chain fragile — while many others veered off-topic, blaming the surge in infections on tourism policy or the nationality of specific visitors.
With syphilis infections holding at high levels, a shortage of the first-choice penicillin treatment continues. Production halted after equipment trouble at the manufacturer’s plant, among other causes, and resumption isn’t expected until the latter half of next year. As it’s also the only drug recommended for preventing mother-to-child transmission, the Japanese Society for Sexually Transmitted Infections had, as of the 9th, asked medical professionals to take steps such as prioritizing its use for pregnant women.
Syphilis, transmitted through sexual contact, began seeing a rise in reported cases around the time the COVID-19 pandemic wound down. From about 6,000 cases in 2020, the number topped 13,000 in 2025. If it crosses the placenta to the fetus, it can lead to stillbirth or premature birth, and there are also concerns about “congenital syphilis,” which causes abnormalities in a child’s nerves and bones.
Amid this, Pfizer’s treatment “Steruiz” was voluntarily recalled in July 2025 due to foreign-matter contamination. In November, a manufacturing equipment failure occurred as well. Preparing facilities and getting regulatory approval is taking time, and the company expects “shipments to resume around the latter half of next year.”
Source: 47news.jp / Original article here
What people said
Not funny, man.
It scares me way too much — no way I'm risking that.
Unlike the old days when it was incurable, it's easily treated with medicine now, so yeah, people got complacent about it.
Prefectures with the most reported cases in 2026
For the first half of 2026, the prefectures with the most reported cases were, in order: Tokyo, Osaka, Aichi, Fukuoka, and Kanagawa.
Top 5 by case count
Tokyo 1,422
Osaka 658
Aichi 422
Fukuoka 354
Kanagawa 339
Not profitable, so few companies bother making them.
The second something goes wrong, supply dries up.
Plenty of old drugs outperform the new ones — it's a shame the system's built this way.
The drug-pricing system needs an overhaul.
Also some crackdown on cheap generic knockoffs that end up costing you more in the long run ("zoro," slang for copycat generic drugs).
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
This supply crunch isn’t just an isolated glitch. The pharmaceutical industry has a persistent structural problem: drugs with prices kept artificially low aren’t profitable enough to justify upgrading manufacturing equipment or setting up backup production when something breaks — and some posters in the thread did flag exactly this. Many other posts, however, pinned the rise in infections on Japan’s tourism-promotion policy or on visitors of specific nationalities; but the article itself only reports the trend in case numbers and the state of the drug supply, offering no evidence that directly links any particular policy or nationality to the spread of infections. It’s also easy to overlook that while syphilis is treatable with antibiotics if caught early, infection during pregnancy can seriously harm the fetus — which is exactly why the medical society is calling for pregnant patients to get priority access, since this shortage risks narrowing that option just when it matters most.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Breaking News+) thread “Syphilis drug shortage continues — equipment failure at plant, resumption next year.”
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