DoxyPEP — a single dose of doxycycline after sex to cut your risk of bacterial STIs (syphilis, chlamydia, and to a lesser degree gonorrhoea) — has no official guideline in Georgia. No national recommendation either way. In practice it lives in a grey zone: there is no state programme for it, but doxycycline is an ordinary, inexpensive antibiotic available through pharmacies, and a willing doctor can advise on it. For what doxyPEP does and doesn't prevent, use the general guide linked below. This page is about the local reality.
📋 The Local Position
- Guideline status: None. No health-authority recommendation, so this is a decision between you and a doctor, taken outside any formal protocol.
- Where to raise it: the clinicians most likely to engage are the ones already running gay and bi men's sexual health — the AIDS Center and the doctors linked to Equality Movement's PrEP programme. A general practice is unlikely to know the protocol.
- The drug: doxycycline itself is cheap and pharmacy-available in Georgia. The standard doxyPEP dose is 200 mg taken within 24 hours (and no later than 72 hours) after condomless sex.
Don't build a doxyPEP habit on antibiotics with no clinical input. DoxyPEP does little against resistant gonorrhoea and is no substitute for regular three-site testing. Use it inside a monitored plan alongside your PrEP checks — not instead of testing. If you are self-sourcing doxycycline, keep to your normal three-site swab schedule at a private lab. The testing guide below covers where.
⚖️ Weighing It Up
- Strong for syphilis and chlamydia: meaningfully cuts both in men who have sex with men.
- Cheap, available drug: doxycycline is low-cost and easy to obtain here.
- On-demand: taken only after sex, not daily.
- No local guideline: you are relying on a doctor's willingness to advise off-protocol.
- Weak on gonorrhoea: resistance limits the benefit there.
- Resistance concerns: the reason no blanket recommendation exists yet.
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