Michael Gwarisa
As the world grapples with rising antimicrobial-resistant gonorrhoea, Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC) has issued revised treatment guidelines.
The update recommends a higher dose of the antibiotic ceftriaxone for gonorrhoea, responding to growing global resistance trends.
In a circular dated 23 April 2025, signed by Health Permanent Secretary Dr Aspect Maunganidze and addressed to Chief Medical Officers and Provincial Medical Directors, the ministry aligned dosing with international standards to boost effectiveness against gonorrhoea, caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae.
The prior 250mg stat dose of ceftriaxone is now a 1-gram intramuscular injection as a single dose.
Health workers must administer it with 3.5ml of 1% lignocaine to ease injection pain.
The ministry also advises oral antibiotics: doxycycline 100mg twice daily for seven days, or azithromycin 1g as a single dose.
Officials note the changes counter gonorrhoea’s increasing resistance to standard antibiotics.
In 2021, Zimbabwean scintist and Dr Francis Ndowa told this publication that the Neisseria gonorrhoeae, also known as gonococcus, the bacteria that causes Gonorrhea, a Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI), had since developed resistance to available treatment options in Zimbabwe, raising fears of long term health complications in both men and women.
Zimbabwe has over the years been using antibiotics such as Penicillin, Tetracilicin, and Quinolones to treat Gonorrhea but the situation has changed at the back of growing drug resistant strains, leaving the country with only one treatment option available.
