The list of effective antibiotics has been dwindling as the bacteria became resistant, and now it’s down to one. Five years ago, the CDC said fluoroquinolones were no longer effective, but oral cephalosporins were still a common/easy treatment. Now injected ceftriaxone is the only recommended effective drug we have left. And it has to be given along with either azithromycin or doxycycline.
So, yes, getting gonorrhea now means that you have to go in and get antibiotics through a needle. And then everyone with whom you’ve had sex in the last 60 days has to get tested, too.
Once gonorrhea becomes resistant to the last of our cephalosporin antibiotics — “it’s only a matter of time,” according to Dr. Gail Bolan, Director of STD Prevention at the CDC in today’s announcement — we will have no treatment. Then when it gets into your bloodstream, it will be lethal.
