New pill to treat gonorrhoea can combat drug-resistant strains

A new gonorrhoea treatment that can fight drug-resistant infections was hailed by scientists yesterday.

- Andrew Gregory

Cases have surged because the disease has increasingly defied doctors and no antibiotics to tackle it had been found in three decades.

But a study suggests gepotidacin – a new antibiotic used for urinary tract infections – can fight gonorrhoea, combat drug-resistant cases and improve patient experiences.

The results of the trial were published in the Lancet journal and presented yesterday at the Vienna conference of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.

Led by researchers in the UK and the US, the trial involved 622 patients from the UK, US, Australia, Germany, Mexico and Spain.

Researchers compared gepotidacin, taken as a pill, with the standard treatment of ceftriaxone, an injection, and azithromycin, another pill. They found the new pill to be as effective as the standard treatment at tackling the infection.