Gonorrhea

Highly drug-resistant gonorrhea has been spreading rapidly across the U.S. and accounts for 13% of all cases of the sexually transmitted disease, federal researchers said Thursday. In a survey of 26 areas around the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found particularly high rates of drug-resistance in Long Beach, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Honolulu. Drug-resistant infections accounted for at least 25% of all cases in those areas.

On the growing roster of antibiotic-resistant diseases, gonorrhea is the one that has most recently captured the attention of public health officials. Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned last week that 1.7% of certain types of gonorrhea infections show little response to treatment , even with cephalosporins, the last line of antibiotic defense. That might not sound like a lot, but with 600,000 Americans diagnosed annually, resistant cases number about 10,000 a year, and that number has been rising fast.

Gonorrhea cases are rising at an alarming pace across the western United States, even while declining in the rest of the country, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday. The number of cases in California and seven other western states increased 42% from 2000 to 2005 while declining 10% nationally, according to the report. An increase in gonorrhea is typically associated with a rise in other sexually transmitted diseases -- most importantly HIV infection.

A rise in a drug-resistant form of gonorrhea in California is forcing health officials to turn away from a widely used, inexpensive antibiotic treatment, further narrowing their options to fight the sexually transmitted disease. Officials say they are finding an increased number of gonorrhea infections that are resistant to the fluoroquinolone class of antibiotics, which includes Cipro.

Doctor: "We think we have discovered why you are unable to get pregnant. Your Fallopian tubes are severely scarred--most likely the result of a sexually transmitted disease like gonorrhea or chlamydia." Patient: "But, doctor, how could that be? I've never had a sexually transmitted disease." Farfetched? Hardly. Medical experts estimate that nearly 100,000 women become infertile each year as a result of sexually transmitted diseases, or STDs, that, in many cases, cause no symptoms.

Re "Drug-resistant gonorrhea spreading rapidly in U.S.," April 13 This article proves to me that abstinence-only sex education in our public schools should be encouraged, not ridiculed. Sixty years ago, when I took sex education in a public high school, abstinence before marriage and monogamy were taught as sensible and healthy norms for society. It is a joke on our sexually active youth today that something from a drugstore can prevent or cure sexually transmitted diseases. Why does this health-obsessed society rage at cigarette smoke and trans fats but condone behavior that invites gonorrhea and worse?

Syphilis and gonorrhea have increased sharply among gay men in the Seattle area, suggesting that many are engaging in risky sex, the federal government said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said cases of syphilis among gay men in King County, which includes Seattle, increased from zero in 1996 to 46 during the first half of 1999. Gonorrhea went from 180 cases per 100,000 gay men in 1997 to 420 in 1999.

Baltimore has by far the country's highest rate of syphilis, at more than 30 times the national average, and the city blames the use of crack cocaine and the trading of drugs for sex. Baltimore also topped the nation in gonorrhea, with a rate nine times the national average. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta ranked the 20 cities with the highest rates of the two sexually transmitted diseases last year.