( Read more: Big Pharma Exit: Who's Fighting the Superbugs?)īut Smith said more needs to be done. Recognizing the problem, Congress passed a law last year referred to as the Gain Act (Generating Antibiotics Incentives Now) to help speed antibiotic development. Only seven antibiotics are in an advanced stage of development-still years away from approval and use. Since 1998, the Food and Drug Administration has approved only four new antibiotics of any kind, according to the Infectious Disease Society of America. "We are at lows in terms of infections, but this strain is a very tricky bug and we don't have anything medically to fight it right now." "That's what's kind of scary about this," Smith said. Gonorrhea infection rates were at historic lows until two years ago, according to the CDC. It often shows no symptoms in about half of women and in about 5 percent of men. It can also trigger other life-threatening illnesses, including heart infections. In men, the disease can be very painful and lead to sterility. Untreated, the disease can cause a number of health complications in women, including infertility. Gonorrhea is transmitted through unprotected sexual contact. (Read More: Superbugs Are a 'Costly War We Can't Win': Doctors)
More than 800,000 of STD cases reported are gonorrhea infections, with most occurring in people between the ages of 15 and 24. "The potential for disaster is great."Īccording to the CDC, about 20 million a year contract a sexually transmitted disease (STD) and result in about $16 billion in medical costs. "We have to keep beating the drum on this," he said.
Though no deaths from HO41 have been reported, efforts to combat it must continue, Smith said. These superbugs kill about half the people they attack, and nearly one in 20 hospital patients become infected with one, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To date, there have been no treatment failures reported in the U.S.for gonorrhea treated with currently-recommended first-line regimens.)īecause it resists current antibiotic treatment, the strain has been placed in the superbug category with other resistant bacteria, such as MRSA and CRE. Gonorrhea strains resistant to a certain antibiotic not routinely recommended by CDC as a first-line treatment regimen for gonorrhea were detected in Hawaii, but other treatments ultimately cured those infections in follow-up. (Correction: The statement that H041 was found in places beyond Japan is incorrect, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The bacteria has since been found in Hawaii, California and Norway. This gonorrhea strain, HO41, was discovered in Japan two years ago in a 31-year-old female sex worker who had been screened in 2009.
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