Antibiotic resistance is a major challenge in gonorrhoea treatment and might lead to untreatable gonorrhoea in the future; thus, new strategies such as vaccinations are needed to prevent this scenario. In a new study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, data from all reported diagnosed gonorrhoea in 16–23-year-old individuals from STI surveillance systems in New York and Philadelphia from 2016 to 2018 were linked to immunization registry records to check the outer membrane vesicle serogroup B meningococcal vaccine (MenB-4C) status, distinguishing between complete (two doses), partial (one dose) or no vaccination. Complete vaccination and partial vaccination were protective against gonorrhoea compared with no vaccination (adjusted prevalence ratio (APR) 0.60, 95% CI 0.47–0.77, P < 0.0001 and APR 0.74, 95% CI 0.63–0.88, P = 0.0012, respectively). These interesting results suggest that MenB-4C vaccination could be effective in reducing gonorrhoea incidence and prevalence, and are important for the future development of a gonococcal vaccine for gonorrhoea control.

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