In vitro activity of mecillinam and nitroxoline against Neisseria gonorrhoeae – re-purposing old antibiotics in the multi-drug resistance era

In a Policy Forum, Teodora Wi and colleagues discuss the challenges of antimicrobial resistance in gonococci.

With the support of ESCMID and European countries, EUCAST has developed a disk diffusion test with zone diameter breakpoints correlated with the EUCAST clinical MIC breakpoints. The development of the EUCAST disk diffusion method and quality control criteria are described, together with guidance on quality control and implementation of the method in clinical microbiology laboratories. The method includes the use of Mueller-Hinton agar without supplements for non-fastidious organisms and with 5% mechanically defibrinated horse blood and 20 mg/L β-NAD for fastidious organisms, a standardized inoculum resulting in confluent growth, an incubation time of 16-20 h, a reading guide on how to read zone diameters on individual species-agent combinations and zone diameter breakpoints calibrated to the EUCAST clinical MIC breakpoints. EUCAST recommendations are described in detail and updated regularly on the EUCAST website (http://www.eucast.org).

Increased rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) have been reported among men who have sex with men. We aimed to assess whether post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) with doxycycline could reduce the incidence of STIs.