Treatment and Prevention
If N. gonorrhoeae is resistant to the penicillin family of antibiotics, then ceftriaxone (a third-generation cephalosporin) is often used. Sexual partners should also be notified and treated.
Antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea has been noted by epidemiologists; beginning in the 1940s gonorrhea was treated with penicillin, but doses had to be continually increased in order to remain effective, and by the ’70s, penicillin- and tetracycline-resistant gonorrhea emerged in the Pacific Basin. These resistant strains then spread to Hawaii, California, the rest of the United States, and Europe. Fluoroquinolones were the next line of defense, but soon resistance to this antibiotic emerged as well. Since 2007, standard treatment has been third-generation cephalosporins, such as ceftriaxone, which are considered to be our “last line of defense.”
Recently, a high-level ceftriaxone-resistant strain of gonorrhea, called H041, was discovered in Japan. Lab tests found it to be resistant to high concentrations of ceftriaxone, as well as most of the other antibiotics tested. Within N. gonorrhoeae, there are genes that confer resistance to every single antibiotic used to cure gonorrhea, but thus far they do not coexist within a single gonococcus. Because of N. gonorrhoeae’s high affinity for horizontal gene transfer, however, antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea is seen as an emerging public health threat.
Patients should also be tested for other sexually transmitted infections, especially Chlamydia infections, since co-infection is frequent (up to 50% of cases). Antibacterial coverage is often included for Chlamydia because of this.
Transmission can be reduced by the usage of latex barriers, such as condoms or dental dams, during intercourse, oral and anal sex, and by limiting sexual partners.
Read more about this topic: Neisseria Gonorrhoeae
Famous quotes containing the words treatment and, treatment and/or prevention:
“Jamess great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofnessthat is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually taken placeMthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, gone on.”
—James Thurber (18941961)
“The motion picture made in Hollywood, if it is to create art at all, must do so within such strangling limitations of subject and treatment that it is a blind wonder it ever achieves any distinction beyond the purely mechanical slickness of a glass and chromium bathroom.”
—Raymond Chandler (18881959)
“... if this world were anything near what it should be there would be no more need of a Book Week than there would be a of a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.”
—Dorothy Parker (18931967)