Rising drug resistance is a serious global public health threat. Meanwhile, zoliflodacin, an investigational antimicrobial agent, shows promise in treating gonorrhea, demonstrating non-inferiority to ceftriaxone/azithromycin in phase 3 trials.

The new WHO data found that between 2022 and 2024, resistance to ceftriaxone and cefixime rose from 0.8% to 5% and from 1.7% to 11%, respectively, with resistant strains detected in more countries. Resistance to azithromycin remained stable at 4%, while resistance to ciprofloxacin reached 95%.

The WHO estimates that in 2020, there were 82.4 million new cases among adolescents and adults aged 15-49 years worldwide. The infection is treated with antibiotics, but one particular strain, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, is increasingly resistant to current anti-infective treatments.

Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day said on a media call on Tuesday that the company was working with other governments in partnership with the Global Fund and PEPFAR and has submitted marketing authorizations through Rwanda, Tanzania, Botswana and several other countries.

That’s the goal of the Global Fund, a major donor to combating HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, along with Gilead Sciences and the State Department.

The US State Department announced that Eswatini and Zambia have each received 500 doses of lenacapavir. The delivery marks the first small step toward providing at least 2 million doses to the highest burden countries, largely in Africa, by 2028.

In Eswatini, about 6,000 high-risk people are set to benefit from the drug’s initial rollout, primarily to prevent HIV transmission from mothers to newborns. The country currently has over 200,000 people living with HIV, with most receiving treatment funded by PEPFAR.

Lenacapavir was developed by Gilead Sciences and has demonstrated near-total protection in clinical studies. Its rollout, initially planned for 10 high-risk African countries, is part of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, in partnership with the Global Fund.

Eswatini and Zambia became the first African countries “o receive lenacapavir, the first twice-yearly HIV prevention injection hailed by global health officials as a game-changer in the fight against a virus that has killed tens of millions of people across the continent.

The monthly oral pill was the most popular of the non-injectable options, with 61.6% preferring it. The daily oral pill saw 41.6% preferring it compared with 33.7% who preferred a removable implant and 35.7% who preferred event-driven oral PrEP.

There were 44.5% of the participants who were actively taking PrEP, and 63.4% had taken PrEP at some point. They noted that injectable PrEP was favored by 53.4% of all the participants, with 25.1% preferring the injections every 2 months and 50.6% preferring an injection every 6 months.

Researchers observed that a total of 96.9% of the participants had heard of PrEP, of which 90.9% had heard of daily oral PrEP, 76.9% had heard of event-driven PrEP, and only 21.7% had heard of CAB-LA.

An early analysis shows that this season’s flu shots offer some protection against being hospitalized with this variant, especially for children. However, many Americans appear to be skipping their flu vaccines this year.

UK Health Security Agency researchers found that the current flu vaccines are still providing decent protection against subclade K viruses.

Most of the flu viruses identified this season have been an A strain called H3N2, and half of those have come from subclade K, a variant that was responsible for a rougher-than-normal flu season this summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

The US may be heading into its second severe flu season in a row, driven by a mutated strain called subclade K that’s behind early surges in the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan.

Authors noted that although PrEP prescriptions increased overall during this time, the most benefit was seen in populations at risk for HIV, expressed as the PrEP-to-need ratio, in which there were approximately 4 PrEP prescriptions per new HIV diagnosis.