eLetters

218 e-Letters

  • bla-CTX-M-27 Shigella sonnei outbreaks

    Id like to congratulate the authors for highlighting this case of extensively antimicrobial resistant Shigella sonnei in an MSM in Italy which is most likely part of the current S.sonnei outbreak accross europe which has shown to contain plasmids with CTX-M-27. Sexual health , primary care and gastroenterology clinicians continue to prescribe (sometimes inappropriate) antimicrobials to MSM including for asymptomatic extragenital STIs and empirically for diarrhoeal illnesses despite the emergence of antimicrobial resistant N. gonorrhoea, M. genitalium and enteric pathogens including Shigella spp.. Enteric pathogens are particularly efficient in transmitting AMR genes such as bla-CTX-M27 via horizontal transmission of plasmids, hence the rapid evolution of resistant shigella in MSM. The learning points from your paper for clinicians need to be emphasising the need for far better governance around antimicrobial prescribing in this group including empirical management of diarrhoea. We have recently published UK BASHH guidance on antimicrobial prescribing for diarrhoea and enteric pathogens, however more work is needed to control the evolution and transmission of resistant shigella and other STIs in MSM

  • Concern regarding the external validity and feasibility of low dose long term amoxicillin therapy against syphilis

    To the editor.

    We read with interest an article by Ikeuchi et al.1 We agree with their conclusion that the relatively low dose of amoxicillin could lead to the cure of syphilis. However, we would like to raise concern that the findings might not be generalized to different populations. The majority of the patients had concurrent HIV infection, and the study setting is well known prestigious center for HIV care in Japan, with decades of HIV care in Tokyo, suggesting that the patients who participated in the study are likely to be adherent to the medications prescribed, because they are instructed thoroughly in taking antiretroviral therapy. In addition, those who did not have HIV infection in the study did not have a previous history of syphilis, and they might also be likely to be adherent to the regimen compared with those who had repeated STDs. As pointed out in the study, the recommended duration of amoxicillin therapy by Japanese STD guideline is very long (4-8 weeks), and we are not sure whether patients with syphilis in general can be adherent to this regimen. Therefore, we consider that the findings by Ikeuchi et al. may not be generalizable, particularly for those who are not very aware of the importance of adherence to the medication, or those who take the risk of STDs lightly (and have repeated STDs). Future studies with different settings and populations might clarify our concerns.

    Reference
    1. Ikeuchi K, Fukushima K, Tanaka M, Yajima K, Im...

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  • STIs in Bern, Switzerland

    It would be good to have known the role of Mycoplasma genitalium in this population where asymptomatic infections by other pathogens were common and at least have mentioned it in the Discussion

  • Please dont forget sexually transmitted enteric infections!

    Despite significant differences in testing opportunities, screening and access to care, this paper clearly sets out some important epidemiology of STIs accross Europe, particularly among MSM using PrEP. Despite this, there is no mention of sexually transmitted enteric infections, despite a recent outbreak of extensively drug resistant Shigella sonnei which has affected sexual networks of MSM accross Europe. There have been outbreaks of Shigella described in networks of MSM since the 1960s and can cause sugnificant morbidity. There are poor surveillance systems to monitor shigella outbreaks including transmssion of drug resistant organisms. More work is needed on both surveillance and shigella control strategies including awareness amongst both the communities affected and stakeholders including commissioners and public health.

  • Food for thought in PID treatment

    The study by Dean et al. (1) on the treatment of PID was complicated and thought-provoking. Could it be that "mild" PID comprised many cases that were not PID at all? This issue bedevilled studies in the past, so why not here? Am I right in thinking that randomisation was used to try to maintain an evenness of disease severity between the two treatment arms, that is standard (SoC) with ofloxacin plus metronidazole, and an intervention arm (IA) with intramuscular ceftriaxone plus azithromycin and metronidazole? This is an important point when the outcome of each arm is to be compared. Presumably, after diagnosis treatment began without delay, not waiting for the results of microbiological tests which, in fact, showed M.genitalium in about 10% of cases in each arm, a proporttion seen by others (3) in acute PID. Standard treatment was judged to be slightly superior to the alternative treatment. Tests of microbiological cure 6 to 8 weeks after the study started showed a few azithromycin- resistant cases of M.genitalium, roughly comparable in the two arms. Not being aware of this at the start of treatment seems excusable. The reader must also realize that it was a situation experienced up to 9 years ago before an abrupt termination of the study. Today the scene is different, resistance of M.genitalium to azithromycin and other antibiotics being common (4). It has become clear that M.genitalium should be sought early followed rapidly by treatment guided by nothing othe...

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  • Comment on “Is COVID-19 affecting the epidemiology of STIs? The experience of syphilis in Rome”

    Dear editor,
    We thank Dr. Latini et al. for providing the data for the potential effects of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on sexual lifestyle and epidemiology of sexually transmitted infections (STIs).1 In the study the author highlighted the importance to check the lasting effects of SARS-CoV-2 on STIs. As China is the first country to generally alleviate lockdown of most cities since beginning of April and the returns to usual lifestyle for nearly 6 months, we’re able to tract the epidemiology of STIs during the post-outbreak period in China.
    According to the monthly report disclosed by Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Accessed from http://www.nhc.gov.cn/jkj/pqt/new_list.shtml), during the lockdown period of the first quarter, the number of newly diagnosed cases of HIV, syphilis and gonorrhea were 9695, 102273 and 16439, which reduced substantially by 27.3%, 19.3% and 38.2% compared to the previous year. After lockdown alleviation, the number of new cases returned, but not exceeding the previous years. The total new cases of HIV, syphilis and gonorrhea changed by -4.4%, -5.6% and -18.9% in the second quarter and -7.8%, -9.5% and +0.7% in the third quarter compared with 2019, respectively. As the number of new STIs in China is constantly growing in the past years, the reduction of new cases of STIs in 2020 after lockdown alleviation indicates a lasting effect of SARS-CoV-2. This may result from...

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  • Authors response to Loebers eLetter

    We apologise for the delay in responding to your letter. We were only recently notified of this by email. Thank you for taking the time to construct your letter in response to our published short report, to which you raise several points which require addressing.

    Firstly we feel it is important to highlight that although this service evaluation focussed specifically on HIV, we acknowledged that the HIV sampling kit was part of a more comprehensive STI kit (syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhoea tests). We were upfront with this fact in our report, and therefore refute the claim by the responder that our paper failed to consider the wider test portfolio required by sexual health screening services.

    Of greater concern to us, we note a major error in the calculations from the data provided by the responders for their “RRR” and “HIV result obtained/ STI kit requested” values. This is important, as the foundation of their concluding statement is based on this error. The responder's have incorrectly used the number of returned kits (256,717) instead of the number of requested kits (319,485) in calculating the RRR (request-to-return ratio) and the “HIV result obtained/STI kit requested” proportion. Applying the correct calculation, the RRR value using the responder's data is not 1.36 (256,717/188,187) but 1.70 (319,485/188,187). The “HIV result obtained/STI kit requested” proportion using the correct calculation is 58.9% (188,187/319,485) and not 73.3%...

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  • Management of asymptomatic Mycoplasma genitalium to mitigate the threat of drug resistance

    Peter J White, MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis & Modelling and NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Modelling and Health Economics, Imperial College London.
    Other Contributors:
    Joanna Lewis, MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis & Modelling, Imperial College London.
    Paddy J Horner, Population Health Sciences, and NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Behavioural Science and Evaluation, University of Bristol.

    Pitt et al. commented “asymptomatic patients are not recommended for M. genitalium testing except sexual contacts... The current approach might need rethinking if asymptomatic infections are found to be an important reservoir for AMR and/or a source of infection and disease”.[1]
    Recent analysis of the POPI cohort found 4.9% (95%CrI 0.4%–14.1%) of M. genitalium infections in women progressed to pelvic inflammatory disease, compared with 14.4% (5.9%–24.6%) of Chlamydia trachomatis infections.[2] Combined with its lower prevalence this means that M. genitalium is a much less important cause of disease in women than C. trachomatis.[2]
    There is considerable uncertainty in the natural history and epidemiology of M. genitalium,[3] and we don’t know the importance of asymptomatic infection in transmission. Low bacterial load might limit infectivity but a long duration of infection[2,3] means there may be many potentially-infectious sex-acts. In fact, the BASHH guidelines are motivated by concern about transmission from asymptomatic...

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  • Testing for STIs in Brazil using molecular methods

    The Research Letter by Marinho FL and Zauli D (1) is interesting, but it raises several contentious issues. Understanding the prevalence of genital-tract micro-organisms that constitute the genital microbiome (2) is important (3) and the authors were concerned with this in respect of six micro-organisms that were detected by a molecular method (PCR). Whether they give them equal weight so far as pathogenicity is concerned is unclear because they did not relate them to any specific clinical disease. We appreciate that any micro-organism mentioned, including U. urealyticum, might have pathogenic potential under certain circumstances (4), but finding U. urealyticum as the most prevalent (62.47%) followed by M. hominis (9.31%) does not elevate their status as pathogens and raises clinically important questions of whether these micro-organisms, including U. parvum, should be tested for at all in a diagnostic procedure, unless part of a research programme, and, if tested, whether such positive results justify treatment. Admittedl the authors do not expressly state that, on the basis of a positive test result, patients would be treated automatically with antibiotics. Nevertheless, we must emphasize that the use of antibiotics in many such cases would seem inappropriate, not least because it might promote antibiotic resistance, sometimes in microbes of undoubted importance, such as N. gonorrhoeae and M. genitalium (6). Modern molecular technology is a boon, but it must not be al...

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  • Syphilis proctitis in Men who have sex with men: response to Mwasakifwa GE et al

    We read with interesting the recent report by Mwasakifwa and colleagues demonstrating that presence of mucopurulent ano-rectal discharge on clinical examination was associated with identification of a sexually transmitted organism by NAAT testing in men who have sex with men (MSM) with symptomatic proctitis.1 We also showed that sexually transmitted proctitis in MSM is often associated with more than one organism and that even with sensitive NAAT testing, there are a significant proportion of cases of MSM with proctitis with negative microbiology tests.2 We were however surprised that Mwasakifwa and colleagues did not identify any cases of syphilis in their analysis. This may have been because syphilis PCR testing was only conducted in a small proportion of cases? Ano-rectal syphilis was first described between 1945-1966 although most of these cases had anal ulceration with pain on defecation. Syphilis ‘proctitis’ was first described in 1975 from the USA in a man with rectal pain and discharge.3 In our series of MSM with proctitis, we reported 6/78(8%) cases of syphilis based upon PCR testing from the rectal mucosa during proctoscopy.2 The recent increase in infectious syphilis particularly in MSM is likely to increase the number of cases of ano-rectal syphilis. The clinical features of syphilis as the epidemic evolves may be changing and more MSM are presenting with painful lesions than was previously believed. We do agree that clinical examination of the ano-rectal area...

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