Medical treatment of sexually transmitted disease in developing countries I: Gonorrhoea

The statistics relating to the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases in many developing countries are not available and where there are, they are unreliable. Nevertheless, the impression of many physicians is that they constitute serious public health problems as they are endemic in some developing countries. The facilities for diagnosis and treatment of the diseases have been briefly discussed. The merits and the demerits of various antimicrobial agents have been outlined with the causes of failure of treatment in the developing countries. The economic importance of the "traitment minute" in the tropical environment has been stressed because of its economic advantage in terms of time spent in overcrowded hospitals. The resultant effect of the widescale misuse of antibiotics in developing countries has been suggested as a cause of the increasing resistant strains encountered. A plea is made for stricter control of the antimicrobial agents in developing countries.