By Jason Gale | Bloomberg
San Francisco reversed a number of the highest charges of syphilis and chlamydia within the US after county well being officers really useful a low-cost pill taken like a “morning-after pill.”
Two analyses revealed this week verify that the low-cost antibiotic doxycycline taken inside 72 hours of unprotected intercourse can assist drive down ailments linked to infertility, delivery defects, and dementia.
The success in northern California, significantly amongst homosexual and bisexual males and transgender ladies, underscores the potential of so-called doxyPEP to handle considered one of public well being’s most pressing challenges. In 2023 alone, 3,882 infants within the US contracted syphilis from their moms both in utero or throughout supply — a tenfold improve since 2013.
“We have the evidence now to show that it does work,” stated Michael Traeger, a analysis fellow at Boston’s Harvard Pilgrim Well being Care Institute.
Traeger co-authored a research in JAMA Inner Medication that discovered doxyPEP customers in northern California skilled a 79% discount in optimistic assessments for chlamydia, 80% for syphilis, and 12% for gonorrhea after beginning the routine.
A separate research in the identical journal, analyzing case reviews from San Francisco, discovered a roughly 50% decline in early syphilis and chlamydia incidence 13 months after doxyPEP tips had been launched in October 2022, in contrast with anticipated numbers.
Nonetheless, that analysis discovered no enchancment in gonorrhea circumstances amongst doxyPEP customers, indicating that the antibiotic is much less efficient in opposition to the STI, presumably because of growing charges of drug resistance.
The research present “welcome evidence” for the effectiveness of doxyPEP in stopping syphilis and chlamydia amongst an early-adopter group of males and transgender ladies, Jeanne Marrazzo, the director of the Nationwide Institute of Allergy and Infectious Ailments, and physician-scientist Jodie Dionne, wrote in an accompanying editorial.
“They also provide direction for the next generation of studies to address unanswered questions,” they stated.
These questions embody the long-term dangers and advantages in different populations in addition to the affect of doxyPEP on the worsening international antimicrobial resistance disaster.
For now, medical doctors have a brand new software to assist curb syphilis — a illness extra ceaselessly inflicting life-long, irreversible and probably deadly harm to infants.
“We’re starting to see that perhaps this could actually turn the epidemic curve in many places,” Traeger stated in an interview. “So I think, why wouldn’t we go for it?”
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