Scientists Stumble Upon Potential Vaccine For Gonorrhea At Best Possible Time

In an era where the sexually transmitted disease is becoming increasingly difficult to treat because of antibiotic resistance, researchers find that a vaccine for meningitis may also protect against gonorrhea. “To our knowledge, ours is the first study to show an association between a vaccine and a reduction in the risk of gonorrhea,” Dr. Helen Petousis-Harris of the University of Auckland in New Zealand and colleagues wrote in their report in the Lancet. The New Zealand vaccine is no longer licensed, but the membrane-attacking component has been included in the formulation of Bexsero, GlaxoSmithKline’s meningococcal vaccine. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Those who had been vaccinated and contracted gonorrhea were less likely to have a more severe form of the disease, compared with people who weren't vaccinated. Gonorrhea is very common — there are more than 820,000 cases of gonorrhea every year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Evidence from a mass vaccination campaign for an outbreak of bacterial meningitis in New Zealand had unexpected results: reduced rates of the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea, a study published Monday in the journal The Lancet finds.
Researchers in New Zealand have discovered that the MeNZB vaccine for meningitis may protect against gonorrhea by 30%.