Speakers
Description
Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) remains the most reported bacterial sexually transmitted infection in the United States (US), underscoring the urgent need for an effective vaccine. An agent-based model calibrated to the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) datasets was developed and used to study the impact of vaccine on the CT and all-cause pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) burden. Model simulations predicted a conventional vaccine with 50% efficacy and 60% coverage can achieve a 64.2% [95%CI: 43.0–68.1] reduction in chlamydia prevalence and a 14.3% [95%CI: 10.1–29.4] reduction in the prevalence of women with one or more lifetime episodes of all-cause PID. In addition, in some countries, the testing policy for asymptomatic chlamydia has been changed. In Netherlands, from 2025, CT testing at Centers for Sexual Health is indicated only for individuals with symptoms or partner notification. No test means no diagnosis and no treatment. However, studies have shown that around 2%-5% untreated CT will develop PID. Following PID, around 15%-20% individuals will develop infertility. Thus we also applied the ABM platform to simulate the natural infection history of Chlamydia infection and testing the impact of removing asymptomatic tests, as well as the impact of limiting the screening to patients with symptoms on the incidence of CT, the incidence of PID, the incidence of longer-term sequelae, and on transmission.
