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> A safe and effective vaccine, while welcome and important, only kicks this can down the road - and not very far. I agree with your other points, but not this
by chimeracoder 4y ago
> A safe and effective vaccine, while welcome and important, only kicks this can down the road - and not very far.
I agree with your other points, but not this one. There are a lot of reasons to believe that a safe and effective vaccine would be more likely to lead to a containment (or even elimination, in the most optimistic case) of gonorrhea rather than just "buying time until things get bad again".
- jMyles 4y agoOh yes, I agree. But what it doesn't do is stop the accelerating treadmill of antimicrobial resistance. There are many other bacteria (and, for that matter, other infectious pathogens) that will happily step up to fill the evolutionary opportunity as vaccines inhibit illness from (or even spread of) others.
- aidenn0 4y agoSeeing how many parents refuse the HPV vaccine for their children, I don't see any STD vaccine getting enough uptake (at least in the US) for containment, let alone elimination.
- chimeracoder 4y ago> Seeing how many parents refuse the HPV vaccine for their children, I don't see any STD vaccine getting enough uptake (at least in the US) for containment, let alone elimination. Those aren't comparable. HPV vaccination needs to be administered to kids because the virus is incurable and is routinely spread to kids/adolescents through nonsexual contact. A gonorrhea vaccine can be administered only to adults, or to high-risk groups, and still be effective at a population level.
- aidenn0 4y agoThat's a good point. I wonder how many adults keep up-to-date on their vaccines. I was 3 years past the schedule for my Td booster, despite yearly checkups, and only got it because I asked for it from my doctor after thinking it had been a long time.