MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Alice G. Walton, Forbes – “In the battle between man and bacteria, we seem to be losing ground. A new World Health Organization statement cautions that around the globe, gonorrhea is becoming more and more resistant to antibiotics. Approximately 106 million people are infected with gonorrhea each year (700,000 of these cases are estimated to occur in the U.S.), and fewer are responding to the treatments that once easily killed it. The organism has indeed become a ‘superbug,’ so what do we do now?

Historically, gonorrhea was an easily treatable STD, responding to a number of antibiotics, including sulfonilamides, penicillin, tetracycline, and ciprofloxacin. However, the last resort drug cephalosporin has also become largely ineffective, according to the WHO, which means that we’re about out of options. Antibiotic-resistant cases of gonorrhea have shown up in Australia, France, Japan, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom. Resistant bugs have not been seen in the U.S., but how long it will stay this way is anyone’s guess.

The WHO’s Dr. Manjula Lusti-Narasimhan said that ‘the available data only shows the tip of the iceberg. Without adequate surveillance we won’t know the extent of resistance to gonorrhoea and without research into new antimicrobial agents, there could soon be no effective treatment for patients.’…

‘We are very concerned about recent reports of treatment failure from the last effective treatment option – the class of cephalosporin antibiotics – as there are no new therapeutic drugs in development,’ says Dr Lusti-Narasimhan. ‘If gonococcal infections become untreatable, the health implications are significant.'” Read more.