Mass. Tries Out Plan to Fight Chlamydia

An STI called Chlamydia -- which affects gays and straight alike -- is reaching epidemic proportions, being the #1 sexually transmitted infection in the country. Health officials in Massachusetts have come up with a way to fight the disease: Allow sexual partners of those who have been diagnosed to get treated over the counter.

The Boston Globe reported on Aug. 11 that health officials have approved the plan, which makes it easy to get the antibiotic to treat Chlamydia without going to a doctor and getting a prescription.

For women, Chlamydia can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease. For men, Chlamydia can cause tenderness and swelling in the testicles and an itching or burning sensation in the penis. But there is another health risk for gay men who practice anal sex in the bottom role: Anal infection of Chlamydia can also mean health problems. Moreover, STIs, including Chlamydia, can increase the risk of contracting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

But in many cases, Chlamydia may be silent, leading to no noticeable symptoms at all. That doesn't mean that the disease cannot be passed along to others, though.

"As with other types of Chlamydia, the majority of rectal Chlamydia infections are asymptomatic," an About.com article on the subject says. "Rectal Chlamydia infections can, however, cause proctitis and related rectal symptoms."

For men, anal Chlamydia may be more prevalent that urethral Chlamydia, a Feb. 6, 2009, posting at AIDSMap.com warned.

"Researchers found that more gay men had rectal infection with Chlamydia than had urethral Chlamydia or rectal gonorrhea," the article noted. "Furthermore, the majority of rectal Chlamydia infections was asymptomatic and would therefore have been missed without routine testing.

"They also found that over a third of the men with rectal Chlamydia were HIV-positive," the posting continued.

Cases of Chlamydia are on the rise, the Globe reported, with cases having doubled in Massachusetts over the last 12 years.

"Right now, if you treat someone and cure them, they could literally be reinfected within hours or days from an untreated sexual partner," the Massachusetts Public Health Department's Kevin Cranston told the Globe.

The good news about Chlamydia is that it is easily cured -- so easily that health authorities in Massachusetts saw an opportunity to fight the disease by simply allowing sexual partners of those who have been diagnosed obtain the antibiotic treatment over the counter. A single two-tablet dose is all that's needed to treat the disease, the article noted.

New "rules approved by the Public Health Council, an appointed panel of physicians, consumer advocates, and professors, allow health providers to prescribe or dispense antibiotics for potential Chlamydia infections without examining the partners of infected patients," the Globe article said.

By making fact-based educational literature available for people diagnosed with the disease to share with sex partners, public health officials hope to make the public an active part of the solution, especially among the state's younger demographic -- which is the most likely to contract the disease and to pass it along.

"It's hard to get people to come in for health care and follow-up care, particularly 15- to 19-year-olds," the Boston Public Health Commission's Dr. Anita Barry told the Globe.

The plan also envisions doctors providing prescriptions, or even doses of the antibiotic, for their patients to take out of the office and distribute to their sexual partners, thus allowing a quick and direct avenue for treatment.

In many instances, health officials are wary of any laissez-faire approach to distributing antibiotics because if overused -- or if patients only use half their prescribed supply from a course of treatment -- antibiotics can breed so-called "super bugs," disease strains that have adapted and become immune to available medications. Such super bugs are already showing up, with tougher, harder to kill strains of tuberculosis and staph appearing more frequently.

But that is less of a concern with Chlamydia, since a single dose is typically enough to cure an infected individual.

"It's really a one-hit, high-dose, kill-what's-there, and you're done," Barry told the Globe.