gonorrhea is a major public health concern in the United States more than 800,000 new infections occur each year but because many people don't have symptoms fewer than half are detected and reported to CDC untreated gonorrhea can cause serious health problems for women it can increase their risk for a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy and for men and women the infection can cause conditions that can lead to infertility it can also increase a person's risk of getting or giving HIV medication to treat gonorrhea has been around for decades but the bacteria has grown resistant to nearly every drug
ever used to treat it in the 1980's resistance to penicillin and tetracycline grows and they are no longer recommended to treat gonorrhea fluoroquinolones are the leading drugs to treat gonorrhea in the 1990s but the bacteria was adapting to the drugs by the 2000s resistance to plural quinolones steadily takes hold cdc modifies treatment recommendations throughout much of the decade to keep pace in 2000 the drug is no longer recommended to treat people infected in Asia or the Pacific Islands in 2002 this recommendation extends to California by 2004 CDC no longer recommends it for men who have
sex with men in the United States by 2007 resistance is so widespread that CDC no longer recommends fluoroquinolones to anyone in the u.s. to treat gonorrhea only one class of antibiotics known as cephalosporins remains to treat the infection there are two main cephalosporins to treat gonorrhea the oral drugs cefixime and the injection ceftriaxone in 2010 CDC takes additional measures to combat resistance recommending dual treatment with either cefixime or an increase dose of ceftriaxone and azithromycin or doxycycline but just two years later in 2012 CDC updates treatment recommendations again in response to data suggesting the oral
cephalosporin cefixime is becoming less effective and gonorrhea has become harder and harder to treat today we are down to one last recommended treatment option dual treatment with an injection of ceftriaxone and an oral dose of azithromycin little now stands between us and untreatable gonorrhea there are already troubling signs with the last recommended treatment abroad infections resistant to ceftriaxone have been detected in several countries and within the US while not common resistance to azithromycin has been found the US hasn't seen treatment failure when using these two drugs together but drug resistance is rising and the pipeline
for new drugs is shrinking our last treatment option won't last forever we must keep drug resistant gonorrhea as a leading priority learn more at CDC gov STD / gonorrhea /a RG
