3 November 2023

Newly announced results of a pivotal phase 3 trial have demonstrated the effectiveness of a new one-dose treatment for gonorrhoea. The medicine, called zoliflodacin, is the first new drug developed to treat gonorrhoea in over 30 years. More than half of the 930 patients included in the trial were from South Africa, including women, adolescents, and people living with HIV.

Zoliflodacin, which was shown to be non-inferior to (as good as) the currently used treatment in treating uncomplicated gonorrhoea, provides an important new tool to combat rising rates of drug resistant gonorrhoea. It was found to be generally well tolerated and there were no serious adverse events or deaths recorded in the trial. So far, only top line results have been shared in a media release and the findings have not yet been published in a medical journal. (You can see some technical details of the study design on ClinicalTrials.gov)