You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
PostScript
Correspondence
Choice of antibiotics for prophylaxis of bacterial STIs among individuals currently self-sourcing
  1. Manik Kohli1,2,
  2. David Reid1,3,
  3. Caisey V Pulford3,4,
  4. Alison Howarth1,3,
  5. Jack Brown1,3,
  6. Hamish Mohammed3,4,
  7. Gwenda Hughes3,4,
  8. Catherine H Mercer1,3,
  9. John Saunders1,4
  1. 1 Institute for Global Health, University College London, London, UK
  2. 2 Department of Sexual Health and HIV, Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
  3. 3 The National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Blood Borne and Sexually Transmitted Infections at University College London in partnership with UK Health Security Agency, London, UK
  4. 4 Blood Safety, Hepatitis, STIs and HIV Division, National Infection Service, UK Health Security Agency, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Manik Kohli, Institute for Global Health, University College London, London WC1E 6JB, UK; m.kohli{at}ucl.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1136/sextrans-2021-055310

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    As interest in antibiotic prophylaxis for bacterial STIs grows, there is a need to better understand the current landscape of antibiotic self-sourcing. STI prophylaxis is not currently recommended in routine practice: only two small studies demonstrated efficacy of pre-/post-exposure doxycycline prophylaxis for syphilis and chlamydia, and there are concerns about antimicrobial resistance (AMR).1 However, 2%–10% of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) users self-source antibiotics for STI prophylaxis.1

    During the COVID-19 pandemic, online surveys of men-who-have-sex-with-men(MSM) were carried out in the UK within the Reducing Inequalities and Improving Sexual Health Study.2 The second survey (23 November–12 December 2020) included questions on STI prophylaxis. The survey had 1522 respondents, of which …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Handling editor Anna Maria Geretti

    • Twitter @saunders_j

    • Contributors MK carried out the analysis and wrote the first draft. All other authors provided comments and edits. The original study design, data collection and data management were carried out by AH, DR, CVP, GH, CHM and JMS.

    • Funding The original survey was funded by the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit (NIHR HPRU) in Blood Borne and Sexually Transmitted Infections at University College London in partnership with UK Health Security Agency.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.