infections
Gonorrhea
Treatment of Gonorrhea
An antibiotic Testing and treatment of sex partners Doctors usually give people with gonorrhea a single injection of the antibioticceftriaxoneinto a muscle. If gonorrhea has spread through the bloodstream, people are usually treated in the hospital and given antibiotics intravenously or by injection into a muscle. If symptoms recur or persist after treatment, doctors may take samples for culture to determine whether people are cured and may do tests to determine whether the gonococci are resistant to the antibiotics used. People with gonorrhea should abstain from sexual activity until treatment is completed to avoid infecting sex partners. All sex partners who have had sexual contact with infected people in the past 60 days should be tested for gonorrhea and other STIs and, if the tests are positive, should be treated. If sex partners were exposed to gonorrhea within the past 2 weeks, they are treated for it without waiting for test results. Expedited partner therapyis an option doctors sometimes use to make it easier for sex partners to be treated. This approach involves giving people with gonorrhea a prescription or medications to give to their partner. Thus, the sex partner is treated, even if they have not yet seen a doctor. Seeing a doctor is better because then the doctor can check for allergies to medications and the presence of other STIs. However, if the partner is unlikely to see a doctor, expedited partner therapy is useful. 