Top in ID: AI predicts risk for STIs; CDC develops lab testing guideline for syphilis

Researchers developed an artificial intelligence tool that can accurately determine whether a person is at average or high risk for contracting HIV, syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia.

The program, MySTIRisk, uses demographic information, as well as lifestyle factors like sexual partners and drug use, to calculate an individual’s infection risk score.

“When displaying personalized risk scores to users, we found most participants preferred seeing clear categorization of whether they were at high or average risk for infections rather than just statistics. This prompted us to identify optimal risk score thresholds to effectively stratify individuals as high-risk vs. average-risk,” Phyu M. Latt, a PhD candidate and research assistant at the Melbourne Sexual Health Center, told Healio. “In practice, knowing one’s risk of HIV and STIs enables targeted and better HIV testing and prevention.”

It was the top story in infectious disease last week.

In another top story, a Healio reporter spoke with John R. Papp, PhD, a health scientist in the CDC’s the Division of STD Prevention, about the CDC’s first-ever recommendations for laboratory testing for syphilis. The recommendations came after the CDC reported a 17% increase in syphilis cases last year and a 30.6% increase in congenital syphilis cases.

Read these and more top stories in infectious disease below:

AI tool helps identify patients at high risk for HIV, STIs

Using MySTIRisk, an artificial intelligence-based risk assessment tool, researchers were successfully able to create infection risk scores to identify patients at higher risk for HIV, syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia. Read more.

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

For the first time, the CDC has published recommendations on laboratory testing for syphilis. Read more.

The best treatment of surgical site infections is prevention

Surgical site infections, or SSIs, are among the most prevalent and pesky health care-associated infections. Roughly 1% to 3% of patients will develop an infection near or at the incisional site following surgery. Read more.

Decade-long Listeria outbreak linked to recalled dairy products

An investigation linked recent cases of Listeria infection in the United States to older cases dating back to 2014, connecting them as one continuous outbreak linked to recalled dairy products, the CDC said. Read more.

Mortality among people with HIV on ART significantly declined from 1996 to 2020

Rates of cause-specific mortality among people with HIV on antiretroviral declined between 1996 and 2020, with the largest reductions being in rates of AIDS-related mortality, researchers found. Read more.