PARIS, April 13, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - An existing meningitis vaccine offers
protection against gonorrhoea, three studies said on Thursday, pointing
towards a new way to fight the spread of the sexually transmitted disease.

  Sometimes called "the clap", gonorrhoea infected around 82 million people
last year, according to the World Health Organization.

  The number of cases has been rising as resistance grows to the drugs used
to treat the disease, leading to fears it could become increasingly
untreatable.

  No vaccine has been developed for gonorrhoea, which mainly affects people
under 30 -- particularly men -- and can only be avoided by using a condom or
abstaining from sex.

  However three new studies in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal show
how effective a vaccine against fellow bacterial infection meningitis B could
be against gonorrhoea.

  Australian researchers analysed the data of more than 53,000 adolescents
and young adults who received the two-dose 4CMenB meningococcal B vaccine in
the state of South Australia.

  They found that while it was highly effective against meningitis and
sepsis, it was also 33-percent effective against gonorrhoea.

  Helen Marshall of the Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide, who led
the study, said the findings were "vital to inform global meningitis
vaccination programmes and policy decisions".

  Another study carried out in the United States found that two vaccine doses
provided 40-percent protection against gonorrhoea, while one dose offered 26
percent.

  The study, led by Winston Abara of the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, examined the health records of 110,000 16- to 23-year-olds in New
York City and Philadelphia from 2016 to 2018, comparing gonorrhoea and
chlamydia cases with meningococcal vaccination rates.

  Both sets of authors acknowledged limitations in their observational
studies, calling for clinical trials to confirm the results.

  Such trials could "also offer important insights towards the development of
a vaccine specifically for gonorrhoea", Abara said.

  A third study in Britain used modelling to look at the health and economic
impact of using the vaccine against gonorrhoea.

  The researchers estimated that a vaccination campaign targeting men who
have sex with men in England would prevent 110,000 cases and save eight
million pounds ($10.4 million, 9.6 million euros) over a decade.

  Gonorrhoea spreads easily because many carriers are unaware of their
infection and unwittingly pass it on to new sexual partners.

  Left untreated, it can cause infertility in both genders and increases
susceptibility to contracting HIV.