Chlamydia trachomatis today: treatment, detection, immunogenetics and the need for a greater global understanding of chlamydial disease pathogenesis.

Chlamydia trachomatis is an important human pathogen causing a myriad of severe and debilitating diseases. While antibiotics have been a mainstay of treatment, there is increasing evidence for potential drug resistance, reinfection and persistent infections that require a reevaluation of treatment strategies. A critical need to address these issues will be a rapid, sensitive and cost-effective diagnostic that can be used for global screening, treatment and test-of-cure of infected individuals instead of empirical therapy that not only drives drug resistance but is not costeffective. This type of diagnostic would allow clinicians and researchers to evaluate the true incidence and prevalence of chlamydial infections in both developed and developing countries. There are extremely limited data on chlamydial sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in many developing countries, including those in Central and South America. In addition, advancing our understanding of chlamydial disease pathogenesis will require an evaluation of host genetic susceptibility to infection and sequelae. We provide preliminary data on rates of chlamydial STDs and host genetic factors that predispose to infection among adolescent pregnant and nonpregnant commercial sex worker populations residing in Quito, Ecuador.