New contact tracing method for sex partners of people with chlamydia

Accelerated Partner Therapy (APT) is a contact tracing method, in which healthcare professionals assess sex partners of people with chlamydia by phone before giving the patient a package of antibiotics and STI self-sampling kits to deliver to their partner(s). This all happens when the patient is in clinic getting treatment.

While in theory, this technique could be used to help test and treat any number of sexual partners, the trial showed that it was best suited to people and their established and emotionally connected partners, rather than their one-off partners.

The study, led by Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU), has been published in The Lancet Public Health journal.

Professor Claudia Estcourt (UCL Institute for Global Health, GCU, and NHS consultant) who led the development of APT and the large-scale trial said it could increase patients’ choice, save the NHS money and be adapted for infectious diseases like Monkey Pox, COVID-19 or other STIs.

It was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), a major funder of global health research and training that benefits the NHS, public health and social care.

The research also involved experts from the Universities of Brighton, Birmingham, Strathclyde, Bern in Switzerland, along with UKHSA Health Protection Services, Health Promotion and Digital Services, University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, All East Sexual Health, Barts Health NHS Trust, The Royal London Hospital, Central & North West London NHS Foundation Trust.

Professor Estcourt said: “Contact tracing and offering prompt treatment, is a key part of care for people with chlamydia, the UK’s commonest STI. 

“It is really challenging to do well. We have developed a new process called accelerated partner therapy which makes it easier and quicker for sex partners to get tested and treated.

“In this world-first, large-scale trial of APT we show that it is safe, effective and likely to be cost-saving to the NHS. In these days of ever-increasing cost pressures, this is a real step forward in how we approach infectious diseases and STIs, and finding ways to help people notify their partners and offer them testing and treatment.

“This new method could be adapted within the NHS for other STIs and infectious diseases, such as Monkey Pox and COVID-19.”

Professor Estcourt said developing a new process like APT is very similar to designing a new drug in terms of the stages they had to go through to demonstrate its safety and effectiveness.

She said: “We feel hugely proud because it is a really long process that takes years and we have followed the gold standard, Medical Research Council guidance, for development of complex interventions. The stages are very similar to developing a new drug:  

“Since we received our first APT grant funding 2008, we have taken the process through exploratory studies, testing it out with different patient groups, different infections and finally getting to this large randomised controlled trial.  

“This study has been a shining example of multi-disciplinary working across clinical practice, academia, including experts in epidemiology, public health, mathematical modelling, health economics, health psychology, commissioning and health service planning.

“Without that very strong multi-disciplinary working we wouldn’t have got here. I am so grateful to have led this research and to all of the authors and their institutions because the strength of this is in the team and the disciplines it draws in and the joint working.”

Links

• Professor Claudia Estcourt’s academic profile
• UCL Institute for Global Health
• UCL Population Health Sciences
• Research in The Lancet Public Health
• NIHR
• Short film overview of APT and the trial findings

Image

• Credit: Pornpak Khunatorn on iStock

Media contact 

Poppy Danby 

E: p.danby [at] ucl.ac.uk