Guidelines for using an antibiotic morning-after pill to curb sexually transmitted infections are on the horizon, as US health officials plan to endorse the proposed regulations.
On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released proposed guidelines for the use of doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis to decrease bacterial infections, like chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis, in populations that are most at risk.
The treatment, dubbed Doxy PEP — 200 milligrams taken once within 72 hours of unprotected sexual contact followed by routine screening — would only be considered for gay or bisexual men and transgender women who either have contracted at least one STI in the past year or who are at higher risk of infection.
“Doxy PEP is moving STI prevention efforts into the 21st Century,” Dr. Jonathan Mermin, the director of the CDC’s National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention, told The Post in a statement.
“We need game-changing innovations to turn the STI epidemic around, and this is a major step in the right direction.”
Evidence that doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis is effective in other populations is limited, although the proposed treatment could later encompass those groups should further research emerge.
“Considering multiple perspectives now — particularly from providers, members of communities heavily affected by STIs and prevention partners — will strengthen the quality and use of the first new STI prevention tool in decades,” Mermin said.
“No prevention tool — no matter how powerful — will change the STI epidemic if it doesn’t reach the people who need it most.”
The guideline proposal, which officials will finalize after a 45-day period for public commentary, comes after research-based evidence for the drug’s efficacy was published in April.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that a single dose of the antibiotic reduced the rate of STIs by two-thirds.
Experts hope that doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis could “mitigate the amount of antibiotics used,” study co-author Dr. Annie Luetkemeyer said in a statement at the time.
“Doxy PEP is a promising strategy to reduce sexually transmitted infections in populations that are disproportionately affected by high rates of sexually transmitted infections, specifically, men who have sex with men and transgender women who have had recent STIs,” said study co-author and University of Washington professor Dr. Connie Celum.
Last year, health officials in San Francisco began encouraging the use of morning-after doxycycline to curb sexually transmitted infections.
Dr. Stephanie Cohen, who works with the city’s health department in STI prevention, told NBC News that “we didn’t feel like we could wait.”
The US has recently experienced an STI boom, according to CDC data from 2021 which showed a 28% increase in gonorrhea cases and 74% spike in syphilis.
In New York City alone, health officials reported a “significant” uptick in STIs after pandemic-era lockdowns, with chlamydia up 9%.
Meanwhile, a gonorrhea superbug poses a public health threat as the bacteria evolves to be alarmingly drug-resistant, a concern that has been raised about DoxyPEP. However, the CDC will monitor potential antibiotic resistance to both STI and non-STI bacteria.