Cases Of Highly Antibiotic-Resistant Gonorrhea Have Tripled In China In Five Years, Research Suggests

HealthDay (3/28, Mundell) reports, “A strain of highly antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea first emerged in China in 2016, and cases of this tough-to-treat infection have tripled there in just five years, Chinese researchers report.” Strains that are “resistant to the first-line treatment ceftriaxone (and many other antibiotics) ‘have spread internationally and collaborative cross-border efforts will be essential to monitoring and mitigating its further spread,’ wrote” the researchers. By 2022, “the prevalence in China of infections with Neisseria gonorrhoeae resistant to ceftriaxone ‘was 8.1% [of cases], approximately three times the 2017 rate of 2.9%,’ the new study found.” The findings were published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.