First Antibiotic-Resistant Gonorrhea Cases Detected in North America

[TruthOut10]

The fears of major health organizations have come true: Gonorrhea that is immune to the last remaining effective oral antibiotic has been detected in at least nine North American patients, meaning the era of "incurable" gonorrhea could be close.

In a study released Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a group of scientists led by Vanessa Allen of Public Health Ontario, found that 6.7 percent of patients with gonorrhea at a Toronto clinic still had the disease after a round of cephalosporins, the last effective oral antibiotic used to treat the disease. Of 133 patients who returned for a "test of cure" visit, nine remained gonorrhea-positive. This is the first time cephalosporin-resistant gonorrhea has been found in humans in North America.

[RELATED: How to Teach Your Kids About Sex]

Last year, both the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control warned that untreatable gonorrhea—the world's second most common sexually transmitted infection—could soon be a reality as the bacteria showed increasing resistance to cephalosporins in lab tests.

"These are the clinical cases we've been waiting for," Allen says. "This is the translation of the lab information into what the clinical consequence is."

Previously, there had been a couple individual case reports of untreatable gonorrhea cases in the United Kingdom, Austria, France, Norway, and Japan. In an accompanying editorial, Robert Kirkcaldy of the CDC writes that gonorrhea is quickly becoming a more threatening disease.

[FLASHBACK: CDC Warns Untreatable Gonorrhea Coming]

"Cephalosporin treatment failures have now been documented in North America," he writes. "Although this milestone was expected, its arrival is deeply troubling."

Gonorrhea is estimated to infect close to 700,000 Americans each year. Symptoms include painful urination, abdominal pain, genital discharge, itching, and infertility in women. Women who have both HIV and gonorrhea are more likely to pass HIV to their offspring than women with just HIV.

First Antibiotic-Resistant Gonorrhea Cases Detected in North America - US News and World Report

 

[Michelle420]

There seems to be a lot of strains of diseases coming in that are resistant to treatment these days, in my town they had a big thing of mrsa going on which you get in hospitals and the local news was reporting it being a big problem and it being resistant to treatments.

 

[TruthOut10]

There seems to be a lot of strains of diseases coming in that are resistant to treatment these days, in my town they had a big thing of mrsa going on which you get in hospitals and the local news was reporting it being a big problem and it being resistant to treatments.

This strain of flu that has personally affected me and still affecting for over 3 weeks is resistant to antibiotics. Can't get rid of this cough for nothing, emergency room doctor besides getting a chest x-ray couldn't do nothing for me but give me advice because I had this for so long, was stay hydrated and get rest.

 

[Michelle420]

There seems to be a lot of strains of diseases coming in that are resistant to treatment these days, in my town they had a big thing of mrsa going on which you get in hospitals and the local news was reporting it being a big problem and it being resistant to treatments.

This strain of flu that has personally affected me and still affecting for over 3 weeks is resistant to antibiotics. Can't get rid of this cough for nothing, emergency room doctor besides getting a chest x-ray couldn't do nothing for me but give me advice because I had this for so long, was stay hydrated and get rest.

I have known three people personally who got afflicted with mrsa and one was even hospitalized for it because the treatments just didn't work.

With your flu situation and the article you posted it makes me wonder what the heck is going on?

 

[WillowTree]

There seems to be a lot of strains of diseases coming in that are resistant to treatment these days, in my town they had a big thing of mrsa going on which you get in hospitals and the local news was reporting it being a big problem and it being resistant to treatments.

This strain of flu that has personally affected me and still affecting for over 3 weeks is resistant to antibiotics. Can't get rid of this cough for nothing, emergency room doctor besides getting a chest x-ray couldn't do nothing for me but give me advice because I had this for so long, was stay hydrated and get rest.

there isn't an antibiotic on earth that will treat a flu virus.

 

[Michelle420]

There seems to be a lot of strains of diseases coming in that are resistant to treatment these days, in my town they had a big thing of mrsa going on which you get in hospitals and the local news was reporting it being a big problem and it being resistant to treatments.

This strain of flu that has personally affected me and still affecting for over 3 weeks is resistant to antibiotics. Can't get rid of this cough for nothing, emergency room doctor besides getting a chest x-ray couldn't do nothing for me but give me advice because I had this for so long, was stay hydrated and get rest.

there isn't an antibiotic on earth that will treat a flu virus.

Well I was talking about mrsa.

 

[TruthOut10]

There seems to be a lot of strains of diseases coming in that are resistant to treatment these days, in my town they had a big thing of mrsa going on which you get in hospitals and the local news was reporting it being a big problem and it being resistant to treatments.

This strain of flu that has personally affected me and still affecting for over 3 weeks is resistant to antibiotics. Can't get rid of this cough for nothing, emergency room doctor besides getting a chest x-ray couldn't do nothing for me but give me advice because I had this for so long, was stay hydrated and get rest.

there isn't an antibiotic on earth that will treat a flu virus.

This is true, but when I was initially seen my doctor and started my 8 day treatment of antibiotics and 3 days of prednisone, I wasn't being treated for the flu, but supposedly an upper respiratory infection.

It wasn't until 2 weeks later and in the ER room when I found out what I was really dealing with. Learning that the prednisone weaken my immunity system.

 

[Mad Scientist]

This strain of flu that has personally affected me and still affecting for over 3 weeks is resistant to antibiotics. Can't get rid of this cough for nothing, emergency room doctor besides getting a chest x-ray couldn't do nothing for me but give me advice because I had this for so long, was stay hydrated and get rest.

there isn't an antibiotic on earth that will treat a flu virus.

This is true, but when I was initially seen my doctor and started my 8 day treatment of antibiotics and 3 days of prednisone, I wasn't being treated for the flu, but supposedly an upper respiratory infection.

It wasn't until 2 weeks later and in the ER room when I found out what I was really dealing with. Learning that the prednisone weaken my immunity system.

That's the whole point of Western Medicine: To Weaken You.
From sideeffectstoday(dot)com: Prednisone:

Prednisone suppresses the whole immune system of the person who has taken it.

Well isn't that nice! You get an upper respiratory infection and they wanna' suppress your entire immune system. It's like decendents of Josef Mengele run the Medical System or something.

 

[Ringel05]

Hey there swingin' bachelors are you tired of the steady drip, drip, drip of gonorrhea? We've got just what you need, new Peter Rooter!
Peter Rooter, that's the name you just flush your troubles down the drain. Rotten peter, rotten peter, rotten peter.

(Cheech and Chong)

 

[waltky]

More Americans falling ill and dying from drug resistant infections...

Report: Drug-Resistant Bacterial Infections Growing in US
September 16, 2013 WASHINGTON — A new U.S. government report says more than two million Americans fall ill each year with drug-resistant infections, and 23,000 of them are dying as a result. Officials warn that steps must be taken now to preserve the effectiveness of antibiotic drugs.

The head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] said the estimate of two million drug resistant infections a year is likely an underestimate, and that the number probably will grow. Without urgent action to reverse that trend, warned Tom Frieden, whose agency wrote the report, the miracle drugs to fight them won’t be available in the future. “If we are not careful, the medicine chest will be empty when we go there to look for a lifesaving antibiotic for someone with a deadly infection. But if we act now, we can preserve these medications while we continue to work on development of new medications.”

Among the most worrying pathogens, the report names a drug-resistant strain of the venereal disease gonorrhea and C. difficile, which causes about one quarter of a million hospitalizations in the United States annually, and at least 14,000 deaths. Experts say a third bacterium, which goes by the initials CRE, is probably the most dangerous. It is resistant to almost all currents antibiotics, and has a very high fatality rate.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director Julie Gerberding holds up a staph awareness poster while testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on drug-resistant infections and the consequences for public health, on Capitol Hill in Washington

Drug resistance develops through the overuse and inappropriate use of antibacterial agents. These can be: Doctors prescribing them to patients who have viral infections that are not affected by medicine meant to fight bacteria; patients not taking all of their medicine as prescribed, so the bacteria making them sick are only weakened, not killed; antibiotic use in healthy farm animals to prevent illness and promote growth. Antibiotic residues left in meat and animal products can then lead to drug resistance in humans. To limit the spread of resistant infections, experts recommend wider use of routine immunizations, as well as handwashing in hospitals and other health care facilities, which are reservoirs of the harmful infections. Also, the report urges handwashing by food handlers.

In a telebriefing with reporters, Michael Bell, deputy director of the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion at CDC, said patients also can play a role in preserving the effectiveness of antibiotics by asking health care providers a few simple questions. “'What are you doing to make sure that my mom doesn't get an antibiotic resistant infection?' Questions like that can raise awareness and open a dialogue that can be very helpful,” said Bell. Patients recovering from joint replacement surgeries, organ transplants and cancer therapy rely on effective antibiotics to fight off infections that often follow those treatments. Experts say the increase in drug-resistant bacteria could affect the ability to safely offer people many modern medical advances.

Report: Drug-Resistant Bacterial Infections Growing in US

 

[waltky]

Research into drug resistant bacteria...

Some Bacteria are Sneakier Than First Suspected
September 9th, 2014 ~ The emergence and rapid growth of antibiotic resistant bacteria has become a serious worldwide health concern.

The World Health Organization said in its 2014 report on antimicrobial resistance that “without urgent, coordinated action, the world is heading towards a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries, which have been treatable for decades, can once again kill.” Scientists have found that some infection causing bacteria can quickly evolve and mutate to a point where antibiotics that were created to destroy it become ineffective. But now a team of researchers from three American universities have found that these mutating microbes can be sneakier that had been suspected.

This image shows two strains of E. coli bacteria (wild-type and GASP) competing with each other as they grow out on a flat surface. The wild-type bacteria appear green on the surface while the GASP bacteria appear red.

The researchers, writing in the journal Biomicrofluidics, found that among the tools used by bacteria to avoid harm or destruction is a built-in arsenal of hidden genetic weapons that helps it develop a number of different ways to evolve and mutate quickly while under stress due to antibiotic treatments, making the microbes much more adaptable and tougher to beat. “Bacteria are clever – they have hidden ways to respond to stress that involve re-sculpting their genomes,” said Princeton University biophysicist and team leader, Robert Austin in a press release. “It teaches us that antibiotics have to be used much more carefully than they have been up to this point,” he said.

Rather than using traditional test tubes or petri dishes, the researchers used unique fluid-filled microstructures in their experiments that were developed by Austin and his colleagues. The research team said that they think their new devices represented a more natural environment for their investigations than traditional laboratory implements. “In complex environments the emergence of resistance can be far more rapid and profound than would be expected from test tube experiments,” Austin said. In previous studies, the researchers found that there are some “wild type” or non-mutated forms of Escherichia coli (E-coli) bacteria that can quickly evolve and develop a resistance to antibiotics.

An electron micrograph of a cluster of E. coli bacteria, magnified 10,000 times. Each individual bacterium is oblong shaped

So the team wondered if a mutated strain of E-coli, called GASP, would have the same type of antibiotic resistance as the “wild type” strain if it were exposed to the same drug. To find out, the researchers sequenced the genomes of both “wild type” and the mutated GASP strains of E-coli bacteria that had been exposed to ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic medication known commonly as Cipro. The sequencing experiments showed that although the strains of the E-coli used different methods of genetic mutation, they all were able to develop comparable levels of antibiotic resistance.

Austin said that the research his team conducted revealed the wide range of tools bacteria can use to overcome stress and develop antibiotic resistance. He also wondered about the effectiveness of other commonly used methods for killing potentially harmful microbes, such as using alcohol to sanitize germ ridden surfaces, and if bacteria would be able to develop a resistance to them as well. Austin and his team are planning further tests.

Some Bacteria are Sneakier Than First Suspected Science World

 

[waltky]

Antibiotics becoming less effective...

Antibiotic resistance: World on cusp of 'post-antibiotic era'
19 November 2015 - The world is on the cusp of a "post-antibiotic era", scientists have warned after finding bacteria resistant to drugs used when all other treatments have failed.

They identified bacteria able to shrug off the drug of last resort - colistin - in patients and livestock in China. They said that resistance would spread around the world and raised the spectre of untreatable infections. It is likely resistance emerged after colistin was overused in farm animals. Bacteria becoming completely resistant to treatment - also known as the antibiotic apocalypse - could plunge medicine back into the dark ages. Common infections would kill once again, while surgery and cancer therapies, which are reliant on antibiotics, would be under threat.

Key players

Chinese scientists identified a new mutation, dubbed the MCR-1 gene, that prevented colistin from killing bacteria. The report in the Lancet Infectious Diseases showed resistance in a fifth of animals tested, 15% of raw meat samples and in 16 patients. And the resistance had spread between a range of bacterial strains and species, including E. coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. There is also evidence that it has spread to Laos and Malaysia.

Prof Timothy Walsh, who collaborated on the study, from the University of Cardiff, told the BBC News website: "All the key players are now in place to make the post-antibiotic world a reality. "If MRC-1 becomes global, which is a case of when not if, and the gene aligns itself with other antibiotic resistance genes, which is inevitable, then we will have very likely reached the start of the post-antibiotic era. "At that point if a patient is seriously ill, say with E. coli, then there is virtually nothing you can do." Resistance to colistin has emerged before.

However, the crucial difference this time is the mutation has arisen in a way that is very easily shared between bacteria. "The transfer rate of this resistance gene is ridiculously high, that doesn't look good," said Prof Mark Wilcox, from Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. His hospital is now dealing with multiple cases "where we're struggling to find an antibiotic" every month - an event he describes as being as "rare as hens' teeth" five years ago. He said there was no single event that would mark the start of the antibiotic apocalypse, but it was clear "we're losing the battle".

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See also:

Access to cheaper medicines to drive global spending to $1.4 tn by 2020
Wednesday 18th November, 2015 - Global spending on medicines is forecast to grow at a 4-7 percent compound annual rate over the next five years to reach $1.4 trillion by 2020 due to greater patient access to chronic disease treatments and breakthrough innovations in drug therapies, according to a new research report.

The report 'Global Medicines Use in 2020: Outlook and Implications' by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, a leading health data firm, found that total global spend for pharmaceuticals will increase by $349 billion on a constant-dollar basis, compared with $182 billion during the past five years. In fact compared to the previous five years, global spending on medicines is expected to grow by 29-32 percent through 2020, compared with an increase of 35 percent in the prior five years. Spending is measured at the ex-manufacturer level before adjusting for rebates, discounts, taxes and other adjustments that affect net sales received by manufacturers.

The impact of these factors is estimated to reduce growth by $90 billion, or approximately 25 percent of the growth forecast through 2020. "During the next five years, we expect to see a surge of innovative medicines emerging from research and development pipelines, as well as technology-enabled advances that will deliver measurable improvements to health outcomes," said Murray Aitken, IMS Health senior vice president and executive director of the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics. "With unprecedented treatment options, greater availability of low-cost drugs and better use of evidence to inform decision making, stakeholders around the world can expect to get more 'bang for their medicine buck' in 2020 than ever before."

The IMS Institute's study projects that global medicine use in 2020 will reach 4.5 trillion doses, up 24 percent from current levels. Spending levels will be driven by branded drugs primarily in developed markets, along with the greater use of generics in pharmerging markets offset by the impact of patent expiries. Most of the global increase in use of medicines over the next five years will take place in pharmerging markets, with India, China, Brazil and Indonesia representing nearly half of that growth.

MORE

 

[waltky]

Growing resistance to antibiotics gets attention of G20 Health Ministers...

G20 Health Ministers Take on Antibiotic Resistance
May 20, 2017 — Health ministers of the G20 leading economies, meeting for the first time Saturday, agreed to work together to tackle issues such as a growing resistance to antibiotics and to start implementing national action plans by the end of 2018.

Germany, which holds the G20 presidency this year, said it was an “important breakthrough” that all nations had agreed to address the problem and work toward obligatory prescriptions for antibiotics.

Pandemics

Saying that globalization caused infectious diseases to spread more quickly than previously, the 20 nations also pledged to strengthen health systems and improve their ability to react to pandemics and other health risks. “By putting global health on the agenda of the G20 we affirm our role in strengthening the political support for existing initiatives and working to address the economic aspects of global health issues,” the communique said. The results of the meeting will feed into a G20 leaders’ summit in Hamburg in July.

A microbiologist works with tubes of bacteria samples at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta​

Overprescription

While the discovery of antibiotics has provided cures for many bacterial infections that had previously been lethal, overprescription has led to the evolution of resistance strains of many bacteria. An EU report last year found that newly resistant strains of bacteria were responsible for more than 25,000 deaths a year in the 28-member bloc alone. Germany has argued that even having a discussion about it will help raise public awareness about the problem. The G20 also said they agreed to help improve access to affordable medicine in poorer countries.

G20 Health Ministers Take on Antibiotic Resistance

 

[EvilCat Breath]

People have a right to have sex with whoever they want, whenever they want, as many times as they want. Disease can't stop freedom.

 

[deannalw]

A lot of these drug resistant bugs are our own fault and the fault of the docs that over prescribe antibiotics for every little thing. It's also a harmful practice to take some of your anti biotics and not finish them