CDC director to tour Grady center, release new guidance on STI prevention

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is on the cusp of releasing new clinical guidance for a tool to prevent sexually transmitted infections from spreading.

As part of the planned update, CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen will visit the Grady Health System’s Ponce De Leon Center Wednesday afternoon to meet with Atlanta health partners who provide “vital care to our community,” according to the CDC.

The guidance set to be released Wednesday is focused on doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis, or doxy PEP. The medication is used after sexual intercourse to prevent certain bacterial STI infections.

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The CDC said the treatment is focused on chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis, many of which have had increasing infection rates across the United States.

As previously reported by Channel 2 Action News , in Atlanta, STI rates have continued to rise, with the metro area seeing increased cases in 21 of its core counties, according to CDC data.

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Data available from the CDC in March showed rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea had risen to a point where Georgia was ranked fifth highest for cases of those infections, while it ranked 20th for primary and secondary syphilis.

In the metro area, the March data showed:

For syphilis infections, Fulton ranked No. 1 among the 21 counties included in the data below. The top 10 is as follows:

• Fulton County
• DeKalb County
• Gwinnett County
• Clayton County
• Cobb County
• Henry County
• Douglas County
• Carroll County
• Clarke County
• Rockdale and Hall counties are tied

For chlamydia infections, which the CDC data shows is the most reported STI in the United States , Fulton County was again ranked at No. 1 for number of cases.

• Fulton County
• DeKalb County
• Gwinnett County
• Cobb County
• Clayton County
• Henry County
• Clarke County
• Douglas County
• Newton County
• Hall County

Finally, for gonorrhea infections, Fulton was again the No. 1 county by case number. However, the lower half of the rankings for the top 10 were somewhat different than the list of counties’ infections of syphilis and chlamydia.

• Fulton County
• DeKalb County
• Cobb Count
• Gwinnett County
• Clayton County
• Henry County
• Douglas County
• Clarke County
• Rockdale County
• Paulding County

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