Via Scientific American:
Resistance to the commonly prescribed oral antibiotic cefixime (a cephalosporin) was first detected several years ago in Japan. Since then, public health officials have been watching the phenomenon spread to Europe and now to North America.
For the new study, researchers led by Vanessa Allen, of Public Health Ontario, examined people who were treated for gonorrhea with cefixime at a clinic in Toronto. The clinic required people to come in for a follow-up appointment two to four weeks later to make sure their infection had been cleared; it also surveyed patients about whether they might have been exposed to the infection since their initial visit. These practices allowed the researchers to gather data on how often the drug failed to work.
Of 133 patients who received treatment and returned for their follow-up appointment for testing, 6.77 percent had failed to respond to treatment, which corresponds to about one in 15 infections. Drug-resistant gonorrhea has officially arrived in North America.
Yup, no end in sight for one-in-15 people stuck with that nasty STD. And there's no antibiotic in sight right now to fix this problem. For now, we'd recommend wrapping it up, and maybe staying away from screwing Canadians. Unless you've just got to do it.
[H/T: Brokelyn]
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