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Editorial
Advancing STI care in low/middle-income countries: has STI syndromic management reached its use-by date?
  1. Nigel J Garrett1,
  2. Nuala McGrath2,3,
  3. Adrian Mindel1
  1. 1Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA), University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
  2. 2Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Human, Social and Mathematical Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
  3. 3Africa Centre for Population Health, Somkhele, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
  1. Correspondence to Dr Nigel J Garrett, Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA), 2nd Floor, Doris Duke Medical Research Institute, Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 719 Umbilo Road, Congella, Durban 4013, South Africa; nigel.garrett{at}caprisa.org

https://doi.org/10.1136/sextrans-2016-052581

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    Syndromic management of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) using algorithms based on the patient's presenting symptoms has been the cornerstone of STI care in many low/middle-income nations for over three decades; usually because of limited resources and lack of adequate laboratory services and also to deliver care as quickly as possible. The shortcomings of this approach have been well documented and include the inability to detect asymptomatic STIs,1 the lack of antibiotic susceptibility testing, the poor positive predictive value (PPV) of syndromic treatment resulting in the overuse of antibiotics (of particular concern in relation to antibiotic resistance to gonorrhoea)2 and limited opportunities for surveillance and partner notification. Of the three main STI syndromes (vaginal discharge, urethral discharge in men and genital ulceration), vaginal discharge has the lowest PPV for a laboratory diagnosable STI. Without adequate partner notification and treatment, the source partner is often rapidly reinfected. At a population level, asymptomatic STIs constitute the majority of those infected3 and the inability to test and treat these individuals means that most infected individuals remain untreated, resulting in long-term clinical complications and ongoing transmission.

    As an example, South Africa introduced STI syndromic management in 1995 and has followed WHO guidance including the recommendation that national guidelines should be regularly evaluated with periodic aetiological and antimicrobial resistance surveys and antibiotic treatment adjusted accordingly.4 However, training and implementation are often poor.5 A study in rural KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), in the epicentre of the HIV epidemic, estimated that the overall effectiveness of syndromic STI services to successfully treat curable symptomatic episodes …

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors All authors have contributed significantly to the work, have reviewed and approved the manuscript, and can attest to the validity and honesty of the content.

    • Funding NJG and AM received joint funding from the National Institute of Health, USA and the South African Medical Research Council, South Africa to conduct research to study the impact of enhanced STI care on genital inflammation and HIV risk (AI116759-01). NM was supported by a Wellcome Trust fellowship (WT083495MA).

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.