Population-level antimicrobial consumption is associated with decreased antimicrobial susceptibility in Neisseria gonorrhoeae in 24 European countries: an ecological analysis

Objectives. There are substantial variations between different populations in the susceptibility of Neisseria gonorrhoeae to antimicrobials, and the reasons for this are largely unexplored. We aimed to assess whether the population-level consumption of antimicrobials is a contributory factor.

Methods. Using antimicrobial susceptibility data from 24 countries in the European Gonococcal Antimicrobial Surveillance Programme and antimicrobial consumption data from the IQVIA MIDAS database, we built mixed-effects linear/logistic regression models with country-level cephalosporin, fluoroquinolone, and macrolide consumption (standard doses/1000 population/year) as the explanatory variables (from 2009 to 2015) and 1-year-lagged ceftriaxone, cefixime, azithromycin, and ciprofloxacin geometric mean minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) as the outcome variables (from 2010 to 2016).

Results. Positive correlations were found between the consumption of cephalosporins and the geometric mean MICs of ceftriaxone and cefixime (P <.05 for both comparisons). Fluoroquinolone consumption was positively associated with the prevalence of resistance to ciprofloxacin (P <.05).

Conclusions. Differences in the population-level consumption of particular antimicrobials may contribute to variations in the level of antimicrobial resistance in N. gonorrhoeae in different settings. Further interventions to reduce misuse and overuse of antimicrobials in high-consumption populations and core groups are required.