In an article published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on Friday, Federal health officials say that they have recorded data collected from 26 cities in the United States in 2006, showing that the antibiotic-resistant type of gonorrhea, has become even more antibiotic resistant and is rapidly spreading.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at Atlanta states that whereas about five years ago it accounted for less than 1% of all gonorrhea cases, it now accounts for 13%.
Gonorrhea is the second-most-common sexually transmitted disease and more than 700,000 Americans are infected by it each year. This particular type of fluoroquinolone-resistant gonorrhea was once widespread among gay and bisexual men but is now also prevalent among both gay and heterosexual American men.
The NIH says that it occurs most frequently in African-Americans, between the ages of 15 and 24, and in women. If it is not treated in time sterility and certain life threatening health issues may arise. In fact, certain experts believe that it raises the odds of a patient contracting HIV.
President of the Infectious Disease Society of America, Henry Masur, describes gonorrhea as the latest “…..super bug(s) for which treatment options have become dangerously few."
The CDC has therefore counseled physicians to prescribe a class of drugs known as cephalosporins which were used in the 1980s, rather than the more commonly used antibiotics such as ciprofloxacin or Cipro, Levaquin, or Floxin. These have been the accepted treatment since the beginning of the 1990s but are now losing their efficacy. Rocephin which is a cephalosporin, is an injectable drug manufactured by Roche Pharmaceuticals.
Head of the CDC's division, John M. Douglas Jr. terms this as necessary in the interests of protecting both public and private health.
What is disturbing is that gonorrhea builds up a resistance to antibiotics quickly and that could prove to be too much for doctors to handle were that to occur in regard to the cephalosporins.
"We still have one effective class, but now it's the only one we've got," Douglas said. "This raises the possibility that we may slip into a situation where we have no highly reliable remedies."
He also feels that the infection's resistance came as a result of people using antibiotics carelessly or unnecessarily, which causes pathogens to metamorphose and build up resistance to them. He further rued the fact that this is happening at a time when the pharmaceutical industry is no longer motivated to develop new antibiotics.
The CDC reiterated that sexual abstention and the proper use of condoms would be a deterrent to the spread of the disease.
In the meantime the CDC is working with both local and state health departments, as well as with the World Health Organization, in monitoring the possible materialization of a resistance to cephalosporins.
