Getting into this box is what's best for both of us. During your time in the box, you will learn so much, and yet experience so little. It's a wild ride, my friend, one well worth the time spent...and let's face it, you don't have much to do these days anyway.

Wednesday 16 January 2013

A bit old, but...


A strain of gonorrhea immune to all current oral antibiotics surfaced in North America a handful of days ago.

From the article:

"A study released today by the Journal of the American Medical Association announced it had found nine patients with a strain of the sexually transmitted disease immune to the last remaining effective oral antibiotic.

This confirms the fears of both the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organisation who warned last year that untreatable gonorrhea, the world's second most common STD would soon become a reality.


Researchers observed that 6.7 percent of patients with gonorrhea at one Toronto clinic still had the disease after a round of cephalosporins, which is the last antibiotic which doctors are able to use to cure the disease.

Out of 133 patients who returned for a 'test of cure' visit, nine remained positive with the disease, which is roughly one in 15 people. This study revealed the first time that cephalosporin-resistant gonorrhea had been found in humans in North America."


There are two things that allow us humans to rut like we do today: antibiotics to deal with STDs, and birth control to deal with unwanted pregnancies. How much each contributes to what we have today is debatable, but it's undeniable antibiotics played a part. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming years, if this will really spread like wildfire like these disease watchdogs claim it might and how it might change people.

Then again, AIDS is incurable and a 100% death sentence - and yet doesn't stop us from going at it.

I guess time will tell.

Edit: my bad. The strain's impervious to all oral antibiotics, but the article also notes that resistance to injected antibiotics is also increasing. Hmm...I'll need to look further into this.

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