Antimicrobial susceptibility and typing of Neisseria gonorrhoeae strains from Southern Spain, 2012-2014.

Background: Gonorrhoea remains an important health problem worldwide. The latest European guidelines have recommended the introduction of dual antimicrobial therapy due to the increase in its resistance to antimicrobial agents.

Methods: In the present study, the susceptibility to some antibiotics was evaluated, and the typing of Neisseria gonorrhoeae strains was also performed. All Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG) strains isolated from January 2012 to October 2014 were included in this work. Gonococcal isolates were tested for susceptibility according to the recommendations of both the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) and the European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST). A total of 65 isolates were typed by the NG multi-antigen sequence types (NG-MAST) technique.

Results: The most frequent types found were ST 1407, ST 5405, ST 2992, and ST 5120. If CLSI and EUCAST criteria were applied, an ST 9807 type was found non-susceptible to ceftriaxone and cefixime (MIC 0.5μg/mL). When only EUCAST breakpoints were taken into account, three strains were also resistant to cefixime (MIC 0.25μg/mL) and two isolates were resistant to ceftriaxone (MIC 0.19 and 0.25μg/mL, respectively). The majority of strains were resistant to ciprofloxacin, and all Neisseria gonorrhoeae strains were susceptible to spectinomycin; twenty-five percent of isolates were resistant to azithromycin.

Conclusions: The implementation of antimicrobial surveillance programs at regional level should be part of an overall gonococcal infection control strategy. Efforts should be made to perform antimicrobial susceptibility, a "cured test" in all gonorrhoea cases, and identify treatment failures to verify emerging resistance. Some types have been associated with decreased susceptibility to cephalosporins, making molecular typing a useful tool to predict antimicrobial resistance.