Canada: Gonorrhea Making Surprising ComebackJuly 17, 2003 Gonorrhea is on the rise in Canada and growing dangerously
resistant to even the most potent antibiotics. After 20 years of
constant decline, gonorrhea rates have jumped more than 40
percent over the past five years, Health Canada scientists
report. Even more worrisome, drug-resistant strains of the
disease are being reported across the country.
Adapted from:The National Laboratory for STDs is now receiving up to 5,000 isolates each year that are immune to at least one antibiotic. Moreover, the proportion of samples resistant to ciprofloxacin, one leading treatment, is soaring, jumping more than 200-fold in the past decade. The situation is grimmer in Atlantic Canada, where ciprofloxacin-resistant gonorrhea is double the national number. Experts are blaming gonorrhea's revival in part on evaporating fears of HIV due to improved drug treatments. In addition, a new generation of sexually active youth never witnessed the early devastation of AIDS, said Dr. Janice Mann, acting manager of Health Canada's sexual health and STD section. Suddenly, the fear factor that once kept gonorrhea under control is vanishing. In women, untreated gonorrhea can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease and scarring of the fallopian tubes, causing infertility or increasing the chances of ectopic pregnancies. Men can be left infertile from genital tract scarring and, for both sexes, the infection can spread through the blood into the joints, causing gonoccocal arthritis. Further complicating the picture for women is that as many as half do not exhibit symptoms. Calgary Herald 07.14.03; Sharon Kirkey This article was provided by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is a part of the publication CDC HIV/Hepatitis/STD/TB Prevention News Update.
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