Just when we thought the gonorrhoea situation couldn’t get any worse, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) reports that there has been a significant increase in the number of cases reported over just this last year: a staggering 25% increase to be exact. Fewer than 17,000 cases of the infection were reported in 2010 and last year this figure jumped to 21,000.
According to the HPA, the groups most affected by this STI are men who have sex with men (MSM) and young people between the ages of 15 and 24. It obviously isn’t clear that although the infection is common and treatable, it has the potential to affect fertility and cause complications in pregnancy, as chlamydia does if left untreated.
Although antibiotic resistance has been observed in recent years, the latest figures actually show a reversal of this trend following the introduction of new prescribing guidelines last year. Resistance to Ceftriaxone declined, as did resistance to Cefixime. Resistance to Azithromycin remained stable at the low rate of 0.5%. A higher rate of resistant strains was observed in cases involving MSM.
You can read the full Health Protection Agency statement here.