<p>"This seems like something that should have happened a hundred years ago, not last year," the state's former health officer said.</p><p>JACKSON, Miss. — The number of babies in Mississippi being treated for congenital syphilis has jumped by more than 900% over five years, uprooting the progress the nation’s poorest state had made in nearly quashing what experts say is an avoidable public health crisis. The rise in cases has placed newborns at further risk of life-threatening harm in a state that’s already home to the nation’s worst infant mortality rate.</p>