Thursday, February 23, 2012

Dramatic increase in resistence to gonorrhea anti-microbials since 2006

The incidence of resistance of Gonorrhea to drugs has been soaring since 2006--and the nasty bug is becoming resistent to the antimicrobial agents.
It is time to sound the alarm. During the past 3 years, the wily gonococcus has become less susceptible to our last line of antimicrobial defense, threatening our ability to cure gonorrhea and prevent severe sequelae.

Gonorrhea is the second most commonly reported communicable disease in the United States, with an estimated incidence of more than 600,000 cases annually. It disproportionately affects vulnerable populations such as minorities who are marginalized because of race, ethnic group, or sexual orientation. Unfortunately, Neisseria gonorrhoeae has always readily developed resistance to antimicrobial agents: it became resistant to sulfanilamide in the 1940s, penicillins and tetracyclines . . .
NEJM Feb. 9, 2012
The popularized accounts of this report didn't note that the increase is primarily among gay men.

The official report in NEJM first had the obligatory blame whitey and homophobia, 1) "minorities who are marginalized because of race, ethnic group, or sexual orientation, 2) hand out more condoms, more lectures, and more testing, 3) develop new drugs and tests, and 4) develop a vaccine.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now that IS a different subject. why are we so interested in sex these days.And they say republicans wear their corsets too tight...hummmmm

Norma said...

As usual, you missed the point.