Investigating the effects of accelerated partner therapy (APT) on chlamydia transmission in Britain: a mathematical modelling study

作者：Christian L. Althaus, Catherine H Mercer, Jackie Cassell, Claudia Estcourt, Nicola Low · 发表于：medRxiv · 年份：2020 · DOI：10.1101/2020.12.07.20245142 · 被引用次数：3 · 研究领域：Reproductive tract infections research、Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health、HIV/AIDS Research and Interventions

Understanding the effects of partner notification (PN) on the transmission of chlamydia, the most prevalent bacterial sexual transmitted infection worldwide, is critical for implementing optimal control strategies. Accelerated partner therapy (APT) aims to increase the numbers of partners treated and reduce the time to partner treatment. Our objective was to study the effects of APT interventions on partner treatment and chlamydia transmission in order to better understand the results of LUSTRUM, an APT cross-over cluster randomised controlled trial in the UK. We developed a novel deterministic, population-based chlamydia transmission model including the process of PN. We considered a population aged 16-34 years and calibrated the model to sexual behaviour data between people of the opposite-sex and chlamydia prevalence data reported by 3,671 participants in Britain's third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3, 2010-2012) using Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC). We investigated the potential effects of APT on chlamydia transmission by increasing the number of treated partners and reducing the time to partner treatment compared to standard PN. The median prevalence of chlamydia in the model was 1.84% (95% credible interval, CrI: 1.60%-2.62%) in women and 1.78% (95% CrI: 1.13%-2.14%) in men. Chlamydia positivity was highest in partners of symptomatic index cases with low sexual activity. Infected partners were typically asymptomatic and belonged to ...