United States: Getting it straight from the CDC boards, these fresh guidelines are the first to recommend the set demographic of a particular patient that a specific healthcare provider should seek to utilize a given broad-spectrum common antibiotic in preventing new occurrences of STDs.
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The recommendations have come at a time when there is a high prevalence of bacterial STIs that pose serious risks to millions of people in the United States.
As it has been pointed out over the last decade, STI-reported figures are 42 percent higher between 2011 and 2021, with over 2.5 million cases reported in 2021 only, as per the CDC, the Hill reported.
Another CDC report also revealed that it has a before year 17 percent of Syphilis cases were found, and it was up to 80 percent five years before.
Syphilis history in the US
Once, in the 1990s, the United States was on the brink of eliminating syphilis completely, although now the rates have skyrocketed primarily because of the lack of funding for public health that has escalated the prevalence rates along with the growing addiction mentality and the ongoing mental health epidemic, the Hill reported.
Research has also revealed that the doxy PEP regime has reduced the prevalence of everyday STIs such as Chlamydia, Syphilis, and Gonorrhoea.
The agency indicated that administration of doxy PEP with a prescription of doxy for one year after diagnosis could prevent up to 40 percent of new STIs in the population most affected.
Health providers should provide a 200-milligram dosage of doxycycline to gay and bisexual men who have sex with men, as well as transgender women, to be taken at the earliest within 72 hours after requiring it following unprotected intercourse.
The prescription should include the number of doses that will likely suffice for the period of sexual activity until the next visit.
Moreover, measures for doxy PEP should be continued, and the agency has suggested evaluating the need for it every 3–6 months. If almost all members of any of these groups have been diagnosed with an STI in the last 12 months, counseling should be done telling them that doxy PEP is an effective postexposure prophylaxis against these STIs.
Tailored guidance for beneficiary populations
The guidance is tailored for the most probable beneficiary populations — gay and bisexual men as well as transsexual women who had an STI within one year and are likely to acquire the infection again.
Doxycycline is one of the widely used non-expensive antibiotics that is employed to prevent various infections, including malaria and Lyme disease.
It is also the accepted therapy for treating chlamydia and the second-line regimen for syphilis treatment in non-pregnant prostitutes who have a severe penicillin allergy or where penicillin is unavailable. However, till the recent past, it has not been employed to help in the prevention of STIs.
According to Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), the local health officials consider that the guidance has the capability to be proven as a “game changer” after making available the cheap and effective drugs more widely.
Plescia added that “Nothing is a panacea, but this has the potential to be a real change in our ability to make a difference in the high rates [of STIs] we’re seeing,” along with the potential to not only just slowing down an increase but also speeding up a decrease.