New guidance you may have missed in 2024, including for UTIs

Amid progress made on COVID-19 prevention and treatment and continued progress on ART for HIV, and new concerns about syphilis levels in the United States, updates to clinical guidance in 2024 covered a lot of ground.

The astonishing success of doxycycline for post-exposure prophylaxis also led the CDC to recommend specific patients be counseled on its use, whereas the WikiGuidelines collaborative published the first new guidance on UTI treatment in 14 years.

Here are nine stories on updated or new guidance published this year.

WikiGuidelines group publishes first new UTI guidance in 14 years

The WikiGuidelines collaborative published its third clinical practice guidance, offering six full recommendations and three partial recommendations on UTIs, based on more than 900 studies on five areas of care. Read more.

Should US consider risk-based recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines?

The U.S. is one of a few countries with universal COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, and CDC advisors stuck with them for the 2024-2025 respiratory season, but not before considering a move to considering individual risk factors. Read more.

IDSA updates guidance on resistant gram-negative infections

Because of the rapid progress of antimicrobial resistance evolution and research, the Infectious Diseases Society of America plans to update antimicrobial resistance guidance annually, starting with the most commonly encountered pathogens in community hospitals and academic medical centers. Read more.

CDC recommends clinicians counsel certain patients about doxy-PEP for STI prevention

With promising evidence that doxycycline for post-exposure prophylaxis is effective at preventing STIs, the CDC recommended that clinicians counsel gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men and transgender women about its use. Read more.

Q&A: IDSA issues updated diagnostic guidelines for COVID-19

Because the global seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies is close to 100%, the IDSA updated guidelines to recommend against serologic testing for COVID-19 in most people. Read more.

VIDEO: IAS-USA endorses off-label use of long-acting ART for HIV

Long-acting cabotegravir and rilpivirine hasbeen approved by the FDA since 2021 for people with HIV who are virologically suppressed on oral ART but Paul Sax, MD, clinical director of the division of infectious diseases at Harvard Medical School, told us the treatment can also be useful for people who struggle with medication adherence. Watch the video.

CDC: People with COVID-19 no longer have to isolate for 5 days

After 2 years of recommending that people with COVID-19 isolate for 5 days, followed by 5 days of wearing a mask when around other people, the CDC updated the guidance based on “progress we have made protecting against severe illness” from SARS-CoV-2 infection, according to CDC Director Mandy K. Cohen, MD, MPH. Read more.

HHS panel recommends statins for more people with HIV

People with HIV have double the risk for cardiovascular disease and develop it a decade earlier than the general population, which led to the HHS recommending statins for some PWH as young as 40. Read more.

Q&A: CDC publishes first recommendations for syphilis testing amid spike in cases

After data showed a 17% increase in syphilis and 30.6% increase in congenital syphilis, John R. Papp, PhD, health scientist in the CDC’s Division of STD Prevention, told us the agency published syphilis testing guidelines to establish a baseline for serologic testing for the infection. Read more.