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- Title
Evaluating spatially adaptive guidelines for the treatment of gonorrhea to reduce the incidence of gonococcal infection and increase the effective lifespan of antibiotics.
- Authors
Yaesoubi, Reza; Cohen, Ted; Hsu, Katherine; Gift, Thomas L.; St. Cyr, Sancta B.; Salomon, Joshua A.; Grad, Yonatan H.
- Abstract
In the absence of point-of-care gonorrhea diagnostics that report antibiotic susceptibility, gonorrhea treatment is empiric and determined by standardized guidelines. These guidelines are informed by estimates of resistance prevalence from national surveillance systems. We examined whether guidelines informed by local, rather than national, surveillance data could reduce the incidence of gonorrhea and increase the effective lifespan of antibiotics used in treatment guidelines. We used a transmission dynamic model of gonorrhea among men who have sex with men (MSM) in 16 U.S. metropolitan areas to determine whether spatially adaptive treatment guidelines based on local estimates of resistance prevalence can extend the effective lifespan of hypothetical antibiotics. The rate of gonorrhea cases in these metropolitan areas was 5,548 cases per 100,000 MSM in 2017. Under the current strategy of updating the treatment guideline when the prevalence of resistance exceeds 5%, we showed that spatially adaptive guidelines could reduce the annual rate of gonorrhea cases by 200 cases (95% uncertainty interval: 169, 232) per 100,000 MSM population while extending the use of a first-line antibiotic by 0.75 (0.55, 0.95) years. One potential strategy to reduce the incidence of gonorrhea while extending the effective lifespan of antibiotics is to inform treatment guidelines based on local, rather than national, resistance prevalence. Author summary: Antimicrobial resistance threatens the effective treatment of a growing number of infections worldwide. In the absence of rapid point-of-care diagnostics that determine antibiotic susceptibility, the treatment of several infections caused by bacteria (e.g., gonorrhea and tuberculosis) remain empiric and informed by guidelines. These guidelines are usually determined at the national level and based on the estimated resistance prevalence nationally. Here, we show that more cases of gonorrhea could be prevented and the effective lifespan of antibiotics suitable for the treatment of gonorrhea could be extended if treatment guidelines are determined locally and based on the regional resistance prevalence rather than on a single nationwide recommendation. Our analysis provides evidence to highlight the importance of 1) maintaining local surveillance systems of antimicrobial resistance and 2) engaged policymakers who use the data from these surveillance systems to inform timely and effective decisions at the local level.
- Subjects
GONORRHEA; TUBERCULOSIS; MEN who have sex with men; ANTIBIOTICS
- Publication
PLoS Computational Biology, 2022, Vol 18, Issue 2, p1
- ISSN
1553-734X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009842