Sustainable antimicrobial surveillance programs essential for controlling Neisseria gonorrhoeae superbug.

摘要

The progressive development of resistance in isolates of Neisseria gonorrhoeae to antimicrobial agents used to treat gonococcal infections has been a characteristic of the microorganism ever since the introduction of sulphonamides. Over time, the aspiration that there would be a never-ending supply of effective antibiotics that could be used in single dose, preferably oral, therapy for the treatment of gonococcal infections has steadily eroded. This on-going concern has been founded in the relentless development of single and multiple resistances in N. gonorrhoeae isolates to antibiotics recommended for treatment. This apprehension has been particularly reflected in recent reports of N. gonorrhoeae isolates resistant to and treatment failures with the remaining effective antibiotics used for single-dose therapy: the third generation cephalosporins. Especially noteworthy is the recent report from Japan which documents high-level resistance in a strain of N. gonorrhoeae to both ceftriaxone and cefixime as well as multiple antibiotics, leading to predictions of N. gonorrhoeae becoming an untreatable superbug.