STIs Are Contributing to the Public Health Crisis as Cases of Gonorrhea, Syphilis and Chlamydia Are All On the Rise
Colorized scanning electron micrograph of Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteria, which causes gonorrhea. NIAID and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, suggest that the biomedical research community must refocus its commitment to STI research to surmount this growing global health crisis
Unfortunately, the authors note, STI research efforts have not adequately addressed the ongoing spread of these diseases. To address this public health threat, biomedical research programs need to be refocused on developing innovative diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines for STIs. Healthcare providers need access to faster, low-cost diagnostics to identify both active and asymptomatic STIs. The STI vaccine pipeline also needs to produce effective new candidate vaccines for syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia. As for STI therapeutics, the authors note that research efforts must focus on drug-drug interactions, toxicities and side effects, while keeping ahead of spreading antimicrobial resistance.
NIAID has launched an initiative involving six new STI Cooperative Research Centers that will work to develop vaccines for syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia. NIAID also has funded a large clinical trial examining doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis against STIs in groups at high-risk for HIV and has supported additional novel research efforts. No single entity, however, can tackle the growing public health problem posed by STIs. As the authors note, cooperation among biomedical researchers in the public and private sectors, together with the efforts of community clinics and healthcare providers, will be key to curbing STIs in the years to come.
Article
RW Eisinger, E Erbelding and AS Fauci. Refocusing research on sexually transmitted infections (link is external). The Journal of Infectious Diseases DOI: 10.1093/infdis/jiz442 (2019).
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