UPDATE: Super gonorrhea -- public health crisis on horizon...A British man has been diagnosed with what some are calling the world’s “worst-ever”

[link to thehill.com]


A British man has been diagnosed with what some are calling the world’s “worst-ever” case of gonorrhea – a strain that is reportedly resistant to all antibiotics normally used to treat the disease.

This report is a confirmation of one of our greatest fears — untreatable gonorrhea could be on the very near horizon at a time when rates of the infection and of STDs overall are at record highs in this country. When we see a case like this in the U.K., it’s not a question of if, but when we’ll see it in the U.S. And once it’s here, it could spread quickly.


Antibiotic resistance is one of the most significant health threats globally, and Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified antibiotic resistant gonorrhea as one of the three most urgent threats in the realm of drug resistance in the U.S. That’s in part because gonorrhea is so widespread — more than 800,000 infections are estimated to occur in the United States each year — and left untreated, it can cause serious and sometimes life-threatening health problems, particularly for women.


Gonorrhea is a smart bug. It has developed resistance to every class of antibiotic we have thrown at it. In the U.S., we are on our last line of options to treat gonorrhea — a combination of the antibiotics azithromycin and ceftriaxone. The case in the U.K. is the first confirmed case of gonorrhea that cannot be cured using this drug combination.

Officials in the UK say the man is now being treated with an alternative drug regimen, but there is no guarantee it will be successful. This should be a wakeup call to public health officials and policymakers. Untreatable gonorrhea in the U.S. is very close to becoming a reality — if it’s not here already.

Despite the hard work and dedication of public health officials and STD prevention practitioners across the country, the U.S. is woefully unprepared for this inevitability. If we don’t increase investment in preventing gonorrhea and other STDs, a public health crisis is all but certain.