U.S. health officials plan to approve a common antibiotic as a morning-after pill that gay and bisexual men can use to avoid some increasingly common sexually transmitted diseases.
The proposed CDC guidance was released Monday, and officials will finalize it after a 45-day public comment period. Dr. Jonathan Mermin of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that with STD rates rising to record levels, “more tools are urgently needed.”
The proposal comes after research found that some people who took the antibiotic doxycycline within three days of unprotected sex were far less likely to develop chlamydia, syphilis or gonorrhea than those who did not take antibiotics after sex.
The guidance specifically targets the most studied group – gay, bisexual men and transgender women who have had an STD in the past 12 months and are at higher risk of reinfection.
There is little evidence that this approach works for other people, including heterosexual men and women. That may change as more research is completed, said Mermin, who oversees the CDC’s STD work.
Even so, the idea ranks as one of only a handful of major precautions in recent decades “in a field that has long been starved of innovation,” Mermin said.Others include vaccines HPV virus and HIV prevention drugsHe said.
Doxycycline is an inexpensive antibiotic that has been used for more than 40 years to treat health problems such as acne, chlamydia and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
The CDC guidelines are based on four studies of the use of doxycycline to fight bacterial infections.
The most influential of these is the New England Journal of Medicine study earlier this year. Studies have found that gay, bisexual and transgender women who have been infected with sexually transmitted diseases are about 90% less likely to be infected with chlamydia and about 80% less likely to be infected with syphilis when taking these drugs compared with humans. , the likelihood of contracting gonorrhea is reduced by more than 50% who does not take medications after sex.
A year ago, the San Francisco health department began promoting doxycycline as a preventive measure.
As infection rates rose, “we felt we couldn’t wait any longer,” said Dr. Stephanie Cohen, who leads the department’s STD prevention efforts.
Several other city, county and state health departments, mostly on the West Coast, have followed suit.
Fenway Health is a Boston-based health center that serves many gay and transgender clients and is currently used by about 1,000 patients, said Dr. Taimur Khan, the organization’s associate director of medical research. Doxycycline.
Khan said the CDC guidance should have a significant impact on adoption nationwide. He said doctors in many parts of the country had been reluctant to talk to patients about it until they heard from the CDC.
Side effects of this drug include stomach problems and rash after sun exposure. Some studies have found it to be ineffective in heterosexual women. Theoretically, widespread use of doxycycline as a preventive measure could lead to mutations that render the bacteria unaffected by the drug.
Cohen said this type of antibiotic resistance hasn’t emerged in San Francisco yet, but it’s worth noting.
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The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science & Education Media Group. The Associated Press is solely responsible for all content.
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