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A national strategic plan for reducing the burden of sexually transmitted infections in Israel by the year 2025

BACKGROUND: There is on ongoing debate in the literature regarding the real burden of STIs (sexually transmitted infections) in Western countries and the proper strategies needed to estimate and to prevent them. Our purpose is to present an evidence-based national strategic plan for STI prevention i...

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Autores principales: Chemtob, Daniel, Gandacu, Dan, Mor, Zohar, Grotto, Itamar, Anis, Emilia, Rosenberg, Elliot
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5395852/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28428838
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13584-017-0141-8
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author Chemtob, Daniel
Gandacu, Dan
Mor, Zohar
Grotto, Itamar
Anis, Emilia
Rosenberg, Elliot
author_facet Chemtob, Daniel
Gandacu, Dan
Mor, Zohar
Grotto, Itamar
Anis, Emilia
Rosenberg, Elliot
author_sort Chemtob, Daniel
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: There is on ongoing debate in the literature regarding the real burden of STIs (sexually transmitted infections) in Western countries and the proper strategies needed to estimate and to prevent them. Our purpose is to present an evidence-based national strategic plan for STI prevention in Israel through assessing the current burden of illness, leading international preventive strategies, and practical policymaking experience. METHODS: Epidemiologic and health policy data on STIs were analyzed from various sources: a) systematic national surveillance data for the years 2002–2014; b) the international scientific literature (published between 2002–16; keywords: Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) (or STI) AND prevention AND intervention AND gonorrhea OR chlamydia OR syphilis; c) internal Ministry of Health (MOH) analyses and reports, and d) expert opinion. RESULTS: Incidence rates in Israel of Chlamydia trachomatis (chlamydia), Neisseria gonorrhea (gonorrhea) and Treponema pallidum (syphilis) are lower than in most Western countries. However, rates vary among population subgroups: chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis are higher in Jews than in non-Jews, and this gap has increased for chlamydia over the past decade. Primary and secondary syphilis rates have increased among men having sex with men (MSM). It is likely that STIs are under-reported and that incidence is even rising due to migration. A key recommendation is the establishment of an active surveillance system of STIs, utilizing active case finding in high risk populations, along with regular contact with STI clinics run by the four national health management organizations and by the MoH. As with most European countries, the low prevalence of chlamydia and gonorrhea does not justify population-wide screening. Conversely, the increasing incidence of syphilis among MSM should lead to regular screening among this group. CONCLUSIONS: A national STIs prevention strategy for the year 2025 was presented. Although the current burden of illness is low relatively to other Western countries, this is thought to reflect a certain degree of underreporting. These and other gaps suggest a need for focused epidemiologic and health services research to better characterize health risk behaviors as well as provider practice patterns. Innovative implementation strategies have been described, together with the capacity building components needed for developing specific and implementable policy recommendations for the year 2025.
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spelling pubmed-53958522017-04-20 A national strategic plan for reducing the burden of sexually transmitted infections in Israel by the year 2025 Chemtob, Daniel Gandacu, Dan Mor, Zohar Grotto, Itamar Anis, Emilia Rosenberg, Elliot Isr J Health Policy Res Integrative Article BACKGROUND: There is on ongoing debate in the literature regarding the real burden of STIs (sexually transmitted infections) in Western countries and the proper strategies needed to estimate and to prevent them. Our purpose is to present an evidence-based national strategic plan for STI prevention in Israel through assessing the current burden of illness, leading international preventive strategies, and practical policymaking experience. METHODS: Epidemiologic and health policy data on STIs were analyzed from various sources: a) systematic national surveillance data for the years 2002–2014; b) the international scientific literature (published between 2002–16; keywords: Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) (or STI) AND prevention AND intervention AND gonorrhea OR chlamydia OR syphilis; c) internal Ministry of Health (MOH) analyses and reports, and d) expert opinion. RESULTS: Incidence rates in Israel of Chlamydia trachomatis (chlamydia), Neisseria gonorrhea (gonorrhea) and Treponema pallidum (syphilis) are lower than in most Western countries. However, rates vary among population subgroups: chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis are higher in Jews than in non-Jews, and this gap has increased for chlamydia over the past decade. Primary and secondary syphilis rates have increased among men having sex with men (MSM). It is likely that STIs are under-reported and that incidence is even rising due to migration. A key recommendation is the establishment of an active surveillance system of STIs, utilizing active case finding in high risk populations, along with regular contact with STI clinics run by the four national health management organizations and by the MoH. As with most European countries, the low prevalence of chlamydia and gonorrhea does not justify population-wide screening. Conversely, the increasing incidence of syphilis among MSM should lead to regular screening among this group. CONCLUSIONS: A national STIs prevention strategy for the year 2025 was presented. Although the current burden of illness is low relatively to other Western countries, this is thought to reflect a certain degree of underreporting. These and other gaps suggest a need for focused epidemiologic and health services research to better characterize health risk behaviors as well as provider practice patterns. Innovative implementation strategies have been described, together with the capacity building components needed for developing specific and implementable policy recommendations for the year 2025. BioMed Central 2017-04-19 /pmc/articles/PMC5395852/ /pubmed/28428838 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13584-017-0141-8 Text en © The Author(s). 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Integrative Article
Chemtob, Daniel
Gandacu, Dan
Mor, Zohar
Grotto, Itamar
Anis, Emilia
Rosenberg, Elliot
A national strategic plan for reducing the burden of sexually transmitted infections in Israel by the year 2025
title A national strategic plan for reducing the burden of sexually transmitted infections in Israel by the year 2025
title_full A national strategic plan for reducing the burden of sexually transmitted infections in Israel by the year 2025
title_fullStr A national strategic plan for reducing the burden of sexually transmitted infections in Israel by the year 2025
title_full_unstemmed A national strategic plan for reducing the burden of sexually transmitted infections in Israel by the year 2025
title_short A national strategic plan for reducing the burden of sexually transmitted infections in Israel by the year 2025
title_sort national strategic plan for reducing the burden of sexually transmitted infections in israel by the year 2025
topic Integrative Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5395852/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28428838
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13584-017-0141-8
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