Australian chlamydia treatment study

Up to 550 women aged 16 years and older and infected with chlamydia were recruited from the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre and Sydney Sexual Health Centre and followed for up to 56 days through both clinic visits and home testing kits.

Women provided weekly swabs so that we could monitor clearance of infection and any evidence of possible treatment failure.

This was a collaborative project between University of Melbourne, Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, Sydney Sexual Health Centre, Queensland University of Technology and the Kirby Institute.

ACTS found that among the 305 women recruited, 36 (11.8%) re-tested positive again within 8 weeks. Of these, the majority were considered to be reinfections.

As a result, we developed:

• new mRNA test to identify viable infections
• novel pharmacokinetic techniques that proved azithromycin makes it to the site of a urogenital infection in sufficient concentrations to cure chlamydia