Scientists Discover First Gonorrhea Strain Resistant to All Available Antibiotics

[n2doc]

ScienceDaily (July 10, 2011) — An international research team has discovered a strain of gonorrhea resistant to all currently available antibiotics. This new strain is likely to transform a common and once easily treatable infection into a global threat to public health.

The details of the discovery made by Dr. Magnus Unemo, Dr. Makoto Ohnishi, and colleagues will be presented at the 19th conference of the International Society for Sexually Transmitted Disease Research (ISSTDR) which runs July 10-13 in Quebec City, Canada.

The team of researchers successfully identified a heretofore unknown variant of the bacterium that causes gonorrhea, Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Analyzing this new strain, dubbed H041, allowed researchers to identify the genetic mutations responsible for the bacterium's extreme resistance to all cephalosporin-class antibiotics -- the last remaining drugs still effective in treating gonorrhea.

"This is both an alarming and a predictable discovery," noted Dr. Unemo of the Swedish Reference Laboratory for Pathogenic Neisseria. "Since antibiotics became the standard treatment for gonorrhea in the 1940s, this bacterium has shown a remarkable capacity to develop resistance mechanisms to all drugs introduced to control it."

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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110711081423.htm

[Turbineguy]

1. Nature

striking back at republicans?

[pscot]

2. And if it's untreated the results are dire

"In women, the infection can cause chronic pelvic pain and ectopic pregnancy. It can lead to infertility, mostly in women but also in men, and it increases the risk of HIV transmission. In 3-4% of cases, untreated infections spread to the skin, blood, joints, or even the heart and can cause potentially mortal lesions. Babies born of infected mothers are at high risk of developing serious blood and joint infections, and passage through the birth canal of an infected mother can cause blindness in the infant."

[damntexdem]

3. And if UNTREATABLE the resutls are dire.

But don't worry -- global warming may kill us before most of us can be threatened by this one.

[pscot]

5. Well, there's that

No matter how bad things look, they can always get worse.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

4. Population control...sad but their's gonna be a lot of sterile females eh?

I don't know what effect it has on the male gender.