Surveillance and outbreak reports The European gonococcal antimicrobial surveillance programme, 2009

Neisseria gonorrhoeae antimicrobial susceptibil-ity is monitored in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA) by the European gono-coccal antimicrobial surveillance programme (Euro-GASP). Results from 17 EU/EEA Member States in 2009 showed that 5 % of isolates had decreased sus-ceptibility to cefixime, an upward trend in the mini-mum inhibitory concentrations of ceftriaxone and a high prevalence of resistance to ciprofloxacin (63%) and azithromycin (13%). These results are of public health value and highlight the need for healthcare professionals to be aware of possible cefixime treat-ment failures. Euro-GASP is being implemented in additional EU/EEA Member States to achieve greater representativeness. In addition, Euro-GASP aims to set up a system which will allow biannual reporting of antimicrobial resistance in the EU/EEA, with a transi-tion from centralised towards decentralised testing, and will link epidemiological data to laboratory data to enhance surveillance. The benefits of this approach include more timely detection of emerging trends in gonococcal resistance across the EU/EEA and the pro-vision of a robust evidence base for informing national and European guidelines for therapy