The rates with which new drug-resistant types of gonorrhea spread across the United States have accelerated so much that the doctors are now switching to new types of antibiotics to fight the disease.

Among heterosexual men infected with gonorrhea about 6.7 percent in were infected with a drug-resistant type in 2006, while only 0.6 percent had the same diagnosis five years earlier.

Men going to STD clinics for test are subjected to standard gonorrhea tests too, while the data obtained in these tests is monitored. The results obtained from such clinics in 26 cities display that drug-resistant gonorrhea was found in 26 percent of heterosexual men infected with gonorrhea in Philadelphia and about than 20 percent in Honolulu and four areas in California, Long Beach, Orange County, San Diego and San Francisco.

The growth rates of such diseases among gay men were higher, with 38 percent in 2006 in contrast to only 1.6 percent five years earlier.

In the course of 14 years, the vast majority of gonorrhea cases were effectively treated with a type of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones. Today, many doctors start switching to another class of antibiotics called cephalosporins.

But the doctors are concerned with the fact that there's only one antibiotic class left to treat gonorrhea. And it is hard to say whether there will be another drug to treat the disease when it again develops resistance to the drugs currently put in use.

Other diseases such as tuberculosis have recently leaped ahead in what concerns resistance to common medication and microbes like Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella penumoniae and Acinetobacter species give the doctors new things to worry about.

In the The United States about 700,000 sexually active people of all ages and genders get infected with gonorrhea each year. Thus, gonorrhea is the second common infectious disease, chlamydia being the first one.

There was no resistance to to the cephalosporins from gonorrhea, so the STD centers are now recommended to prescribe ceftriaxone, sold as Rocephin, which is administered through injections. Cefixime, or Suprax, are also recommended for use.

The above mentioned drugs will replace the three drugs that are currently used for treating gonorrhea: Cipro, Floxin and Levaquin.

Those who are allergic to cephalosphins, can consider using Zithromax, which is successfully used as an alternative to common treatments for chlamydia.

Over the years, gonorrhea has shown a steady development of resistance to most antibiotics that were used for treating it. First these were sulfa antibiotics, then penicillin and tetracyclines after that. The centers responsible for STD treatment have frequently called against using fluoroquinolones in cases of gonorrhea because of the steady development of resistance in different parts of the world.

Now with only antibiotic class left in reserve doctors worry about what happens next, when they run out of options. It is early to state that there's a gonorrhea epidemic coming anytime soon, but what if something like that happens when gonorrhea develops resistance to cephalosphins? Nobody knows.