U.S. health officials released data Tuesday showing how chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis cases have been accelerating, but doctors are hoping an old drug will help fight the sexually transmitted infections.
Experts believe STDs have been rising because of declining condom use, inadequate sex education and reduced testing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Millions of Americans are infected each year. Rates are highest in men who have sex with men, and among Black and Hispanic Americans and Native Americans.
"Sexually transmitted infections are an enormous, low-priority public health problem. And they've been a low-priority problem for decades, in spite of the fact that they are the most commonly reported kind of infectious disease," said Dr. John M. Douglas Jr., a retired health official who lectures at the Colorado School of Public Health.
To try to turn the tide, many doctors see promise in doxycycline, a cheap antibiotic that has been sold for more than 50 years.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is drafting recommendations for using it as a kind of morning-after pill for preventing STDs, said Dr. Leandro Mena, director of the agency's STD prevention division.
The drug is already used to treat a range of infections. A study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine showed its potential to prevent sexually transmitted infections.
