Gonorrhoea Drug Resistance Update

Regular readers of this blog will know that we have reported on the increased resistance of gonorrhoea to antibiotics regularly over the last few years.  Well, finally there is some good news that gonorrhoea is now less resistant than it used to be according to research by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

The report published on 31 July 2014 shows that compared to two years ago (2012), more gonorrhoea was being successfully treated.  The study has taken samples of gonorrhoea from 20 countries in the EU and EEA and collected a total of 1,927 different types of “isolates” of Neisseria gonorrhoeae.  This year only 4% of them did not react to the antibiotic used in the trial, compared to 7.6% in 2011 and 8.7% in 2010.  This is still a number of people who are not being treated successfully with one drug.  In the UK it is common for gonorrhoea to be treated with two different antibiotics.

The full report is available here.

If you are worried about gonorrhoea, Better2Know can help you to get tested and treated.  We can test for Gonorrhoea using your choice of urine or swab, and your choice of location including our Everywhere, Clinics and Home Sample collection service.