CDC Recommends New Drug for Gonorrhea

Fluoroquinolones, a class of antibiotics that includes Cipro, have always been the most common way to treat the bacterial STD since the early 1990s. Since then, however, gonorrhea has grown increasingly resistant to those drugs.

The CDC announced on Thursday a recommendation that a different class of antibiotics, cephalosporins, be used in its place.

"Gonorrhea has now joined the list of other superbugs for which treatment options have become dangerously few," said Dr. Henry Masur, president of the Infectious Disease Society of America. "To make a bad problem even worse, we're also seeing a decline in the development of new antibiotics to treat these infections."

The CDC made their recommendation after finding out that nearly seven percent of gonorrhea cases among heterosexual men from a survey of 26 U.S. cities last year had strains of the STD that were resistant to the drugs. The amount of cases in 2001 that were resistant to the drug among heterosexual men was only 0.6 percent, which points to a drastic rise.

"That leaves us with a single class of highly effective antibiotics," said Dr. John Douglas Jr., director of the CDC's division of STD prevention.

Other experts also called the situation very serious.

The CDS's recommendation is the first time that cephalosporins have been recommended to treat gonorrhea for the entire U.S. The CDC did, however, recommend that the antibiotics be used to treat drug resistant gonorrhea in California and Hawaii in 2002. The CDC also made the same recommendation to treat the CDC two years later for homosexual men.

The newly recommended antibiotics do include the generic drug ceftriaxone, known under the brand name Rocephin. This must be injected and "works very well" although the drug is not commonly stocked in doctor's offices.

This is in contrast to drugs such as Cipro and other fluoroquinolones were are commonly available and easy to use because they can take orally in one dose.

Ceftriaxone on the other hand must be given as a shot for $20, although the cost is about the same as Cipro, according to Atlanta pharmacist Ira Katz.

The CDC estimates that over 700,000 people in the U.S. get gonorrhea yearly through sexual contact.

Sources:
http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/health/index.ssf?/base/national-8/117639600479160.xml&storylist=health
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSHO26790120070412