UK Doctors Warned Of Gonorrhea's Increasing Drug Resistance

In the United Kingdom, the Health Protection Agency is warning doctors about the growing drug-resistance of the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea to the first-choice drug used to treat it, BBC News reported.

The focus is on the drug cefixime, a type of cephalosporin antibiotic to which the STD has developed resistance. The Health Protection Agency is telling doctors to instead use two other, more powerful antibiotics.

Lab results have shown that 20 percent of gonorrhea samples were resistant to cefixime in 2010, while only 10 percent of samples were resistant in 2009. No samples were resistant to the drug in 2005, BBC News reported.

This isn't the first drug gonorrhea has developed resistance to -- MSNBC reported last year that the STD became resistant to penicillin in the late 1950s, at which point doctors reverted to other antibiotics to treat it.

Gonorrhea then went on to become resistant to drugs including tetracycline, erythromycin and ciprofloxacin, "all drugs which used to kill off gonorrhea like magic bullets," MSNBC reported. Now, cephalosporins -- which cefixime is a type of -- are all that are left.

Earlier this year, scientists discovered a "superbug" strain of gonorrhea -- the H041 strain -- in Japan that is resistant to cephalosporins. The finding was disturbing considering cephalosporins are what the CDC calls the "last line of defense for treating gonorrhea."

TIME reported:

"The potential emergence of gonococcal cephalosporin resistance is of particular concern because the U.S. gonorrhea control strategy relies upon effective antibiotic therapy," the CDC announced Friday. "No other well-studied and effective antibiotic treatment options or combinations currently are available [once the bacteria are resistant to cephalosporins]."

Gonorrhea is extremely common, with more than 700,000 new cases every year in the United States. It is spread sexually, though it can also be transmitted from a mother to her baby during delivery, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Untreated, gonorrhea can cause pelvic inflammatory disease, which can lead to chronic pelvic pain and even infertility or ectopic pregnancy, the CDC reported.

Comments

[ddanimal]

08:10 PM on 10/13/2011

This is another consequence of factory farming. Factory farms use 75% of all the antibiotices used in the US. Factory farms are breeding grounds for antibiotic resistance genes, which spread to many different types of bacteria.

[alteredstory]

07:08 PM on 10/11/2011

Any biologist worth their salt could have predicted this would come. It's basic evolutionary biology.

Basically, creationists are the only ones who ought to be surprised at this...

[360Dunk]

11:01 AM on 10/11/2011

British doctors need to be addressing this concern directly to the culprits - the Kardashians.

[Bill928]

10:51 AM on 10/11/2011

What a world!

[Bill928]

10:47 AM on 10/11/2011

USA AMA doctors have got to stand up against bad medicine too. Rermember you are there to heal people, not to harm them.

[vsedriver]

10:36 AM on 10/11/2011

the most effective and cheapest cure for STDs.... chastity!

[Ken Koziol]

10:09 AM on 10/11/2011

Here ia another reason people with STD should carry a tatto on the forehead or next to their sexual orgin so we all know who they are; "A" for aides, "G" for gonorreha and so on. After all once they get it they don't care any long who they give it too. You have "S", "H", "C" hell there are two "H"s. This is the only way to stop it short of locking them up.

[superultralib]

09:52 AM on 10/11/2011

There is an even deadlier strain spreading in the US. Its called gonerrhelectum and is being spread by supporters of a certain politician. It affects the brain in strange ways.

[lpcrsotp]

09:49 AM on 10/11/2011

Guys: Be very careful to keep this strain of STD off your hands.

[II Quorum II]

08:53 AM on 10/11/2011

I'm monogamous. I'm not worried the slightest about this, personally.

The only sure way to protect yourself is to stay monogamous and use good judgement to pick a partner who will do the same... and YES.... it IS possible to do.

[preklow]

08:46 AM on 10/11/2011

THEY WILL BE NEEDING TRUCK LOADS OF THESE ANTIBIOTICS FOR THOSE MODERN DAY HIPPIE FLOWER CHILDREN PROTESTING WALL STREET BEFORE ITS OVER

[TXLiberAL7]

08:54 AM on 10/11/2011

Quit yelling you will wake us up! It is probably a conspiracy by big Pharma. They don't like the idea of Free Love! Hard to make a profit like that.

[ddanimal]

08:09 PM on 10/13/2011

Stereotype much?

[Fractured Knights]

08:42 AM on 10/11/2011

Well, given the wonderful system of socialized health care that they have in Britain, the Brits will probably be given a choice of living with horrible, rotten teeth or a really bad case of Gonorrhea. Their health care system can't afford to treat them for both. Obamacare here we come!

[flairbrusher]

08:36 AM on 10/11/2011

The one and only way to prevent the spread of STDs for good? MONOGAMY. Antibiotics aren't going to protect you, and it's not the government's responsibility to create magical cures when we don't exercise common sense.

[II Quorum II]

08:50 AM on 10/11/2011

well stated.

[pasquamar]

07:30 AM on 10/11/2011

Too many people having unprotected sex, too many people not taking their antibiotics as directed. too many people having sex with people they don't know, when they get infected the health department is helpless in treating the person who gave it to you! when viruses and bacteria strains mutate fasted than new drugs can be produced...IT'S BAD NEWS

[drunkenspree]

07:02 AM on 10/11/2011

Has the NHO made any correlation between the rise in drug resistant STDs and the increase in
third world immigrants to the UK?

[pasquamar]

07:33 AM on 10/11/2011

INFECTIONS ARE A PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. not immigrants

[vlynnieg]

07:57 AM on 10/11/2011

No, dumbbutt, it's not an immigrant issue. The rise in drug resistance is due to people either not completing their course of antibiotics or returning to their untreated partner and getting reinfected (or sometimes a combintation of the two)