DC Makes Gains in Fighting HIV; Free Home Test Kits Available - NBC4 Washington

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• DC Makes Gains in Fighting HIV; Free Home Test Kits Available - NBC4 Washington
• Test accurately IDs people whose gonorrhea can be cured with simple oral antibiotic - Newswise
• Sexually transmitted infections climb on the North Coast - Daily Astorian

DC Makes Gains in Fighting HIV; Free Home Test Kits Available - NBC4 Washington Posted: 20 Aug 2020 12:00 AM PDT D.C. has made what the mayor called "good progress" in fighting the HIV epidemic, officials said Thursday. Data shows Black residents are still disproportionately affected. Fewer people are being diagnosed with the virus and the majority of patients are treated within 90 days of learning their positive status, the city's annual report on HIV says. The city has met the first of four goals that officials said in 2016 that they wanted to meet by this year; an estimated 90% of residents with HIV know their status.  The mayor highlighted the city's efforts to prevent the spread of the virus and treat patients quickly, and said more is on the way.  "Our goal of ending the HIV epidemic in DC is not yet done, and we will continue to work to ensure equity in services, reduce stigma as an access barrier, make testing easier, support needle exchange and keep people HIV negative," she said in a statement.  Here's new data from DC.gov. More than 12,000 residents have been diagnosed with HIV, making up 1.8% of the population. Black and Latino residents are disproportionately affected, with 2.8% of Black residents testing positive.  Most people known to have the virus in D.C. are Black men who have sex with men, and Black men who have sex with men and also are injection drug users. This group, combined, makes up 28% of known cases. Black heterosexual women make up the second largest group of D.C. residents with HIV, with 16% of cases. From 2015 through 2019, men had more than 70% of cases. Wards 7 and 8 have some of the highest virus rates in the city. At a news conference Thursday morning, Health Director Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt said city needle exchange programs helped significantly lower infections along injection drug users. Just two HIV cases in 2019 were attributable to injection drug use, down from 150 cases in 2007.  It's easier than ever to get tested for HIV in D.C. Since June, the health department has offered a free, at-home test kit. You swab your mouth and get your result in 20 minutes. At-home tests for other sexually transmitted infections are set to be released this month.  To get a free HIV test kit and learn about other ways to get tested, go to getcheckeddc.org. For help with treating HIV, go to linkudmv.org.

Test accurately IDs people whose gonorrhea can be cured with simple oral antibiotic - Newswise Posted: 04 Aug 2020 12:00 AM PDT Enrique Rivero | August 7, 2020 Newswise — A test designed by UCLA researchers can pinpoint which people with gonorrhea will respond successfully to the inexpensive oral antibiotic ciprofloxacin, which had previously been sidelined over concerns the bacterium that causes the infection was becoming resistant to it.  In research to be published in the peer-reviewed journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, a UCLA-led team found that of 106 subjects the test identified as having a strain of gonorrhea called wild-type gyrA serine, all were cured with a single dose of oral ciprofloxacin. Though the test has been available for three years, this is the first time it has been systematically studied in humans.  The new test gives doctors more choices to treat the sexually transmitted infection and could help slow down the spread of drug-resistant gonorrhea, said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, the study's lead author and a professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.  "Gonorrhea is one of the most common drug-resistant infections worldwide and is becoming harder to treat. Current treatment methods require an antibiotic injection, which is expensive and painful," said Klausner, who is also an adjunct professor of epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. "This new test could make it easier and safer to treat gonorrhea with different antibiotics, including one pill given by mouth.    "Using a pill instead of a shot would also make it easier and faster to treat sex partners of patients with gonorrhea," he added.  The ability of bacteria to change over time in ways that limit or eliminate the effectiveness of drugs designed to kill them has created a global problem. Gonorrhea is particularly skilled in this regard and has developed increasing resistance to all current antibiotics. Due to the spread of multidrug-resistant gonorrhea, public health authorities have declared it one of the top five urgent threats to public health.  Ciprofloxacin was used to treat gonorrhea until 2007, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped recommending its use after gonococcal infections developed resistance to the drug.  Nevertheless, about 70% to 80% percent of gonorrhea infections in the United States could still be treated with ciprofloxacin. Scientists have been trying to determine how to better identify cases for targeted use of ciprofloxacin therapy, reducing the need to use the injectable antibiotic ceftriaxone and decreasing the risk of resistance to that drug. Gonorrhea's resistance rate to ceftriaxone is currently less than 1%.  The DNA test the researchers developed detects a particular genetic mutation in the gonorrhea bacterium that makes it resistant to ciprofloxacin. Ciprofloxacin is highly effective against infections without that mutation.  The researchers note that the findings are limited by the relatively small number of people studied and the fact that participation was limited to asymptomatic individuals. In addition, several people who were initially diagnosed with the wild-type strain through the test were subsequently found to be infected with other strain types. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases within the National Institutes of Health funded this study.  Co-authors of the study are Claire Bristow and Dr. Sheldon Morris of UC San Diego; Olusegun Soge of the University of Washington; Akbar Shahkolahi and Toni Waymer of Social Scientific Systems in Silver Spring, Maryland; Dr. Robert Bolan of the Los Angeles LGBT Center; Dr. Susan Philip of the San Francisco Department of Public Health; Dr. Lenore Asbel of the Philadelphia Department of Public Health; Dr. Stephanie Taylor of Louisiana State University; Dr. Leandro Mena of the University of Mississippi; Dr. Deborah Goldstein of Whitman-Walker Health in Washington D.C.; and Jonathan Powell and Michael Wierzbicki of The Emmes Company in Rockville, Maryland. ###

Sexually transmitted infections climb on the North Coast - Daily Astorian Posted: 21 Aug 2020 12:00 AM PDT Cases of sexually transmitted infections have continued to climb in Clatsop County during the coronavirus pandemic. Four people have tested positive for syphilis since January, according to the county, three of whom were identified in July. The county is conducting contact tracing of 12 potential contacts. Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention After seeing an increase in cases over the past several years, the Public Health Department announced a two-year initiative in 2019 with the goal of reducing sexually transmitted infections by 10% across the region by 2021. The initiative was funded by the Oregon Health Authority and was a collaboration with Columbia and Tillamook counties and the Columbia Pacific Coordinated Care Organization, which oversees the Oregon Health Plan in the three counties. However, the initiative was put on hold because of the virus. Michael McNickle, the county's public health director, said he hopes the county can resurrect the initiative after the pandemic. Public health officials declared a syphilis outbreak in 2017 after noticing an increase in positive cases over three years. "A lot of folks think syphilis is an ancient disease that is no longer seen anymore, but that's not the case," McNickle said. Syphilis is spread by contact with sores during vaginal, anal or oral sex, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The infection can have serious complications when left untreated and mothers can also transmit the infection to unborn babies. Two people in the county tested positive for syphilis in 2014 after only two cases were reported in the previous seven years. The county reported three cases in 2015, eight in 2016 and four in 2017. Eight more people tested positive in 2018 and five people tested positive in 2019. The number of chlamydia cases also remains a concern, McNickle said. Eighty-one people have tested positive for chlamydia since January. There were 93 reported cases between January and August 2019. Chlamydia is spread by having vaginal, anal or oral sex with someone who has chlamydia, according to the CDC, and most people who have chlamydia have no symptoms. "The take-home message is that if you have unprotected sex (e.g., not using a condom), and have multiple partners, or show any signs of infection, you should get tested for a sexually transmitted infection," McNickle said in an email. People can call the Public Health Department to schedule a confidential and private sexually transmitted infection test.

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