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Drug-resistant gonorrhea prompts new treatment approach in Ontario

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We knew this was coming, so I'm glad that Ontario is taking these steps.

 

However, I hope no one imagines for more than one or two heartbeats that focusing on men who have sex with men is adequate. It wasn't an effective way to address HIV. It stigmatizes gay men unfairly because it ignores the fact that some men who have sex with other men also have sex with women.

 

Nevertheless, we should all expect that treatment for gonorrhea is going to require both injections and oral medication from this point on. Remember, though, that this bug has a remarkable capacity for mutating rapidly and may soon be completely resistant to all antibiotics currently available.

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Nevertheless, we should all expect that treatment for gonorrhea is going to require both injections and oral medication from this point on. Remember, though, that this bug has a remarkable capacity for mutating rapidly and may soon be completely resistant to all antibiotics currently available.

 

Absolutely right. And the horrible thing about gonorrhea is that it's comparatively easy to catch, compared to HIV (which has hogged the limelight for the last decade or three).

 

We're on borrowed time here. N. gonorrhoeae won't take long before it's immune to pretty much everything, and then we'll be back to the pre-penicillin days when it was incurable. Sadly, there's little research going on into new antibiotics at the moment; the big drug companies don't do it as there's not much money in it, but maybe a gonorrhea crisis in the affluent West will provide the necessary incentive...

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