Gonorrhea infections in England have suddenly exploded to their highest level in over a century—while the NHS roll outs Big Pharma’s latest controversial and untested vaccine.
According to official figures, cases of gonorrhoea reported across England have reached levels not seen since 1918. The sudden explosion in cases has raised eyebrows over the timing, as authorities simultaneously launch a world-first vaccination campaign targeting the bacterial sexually transmitted infection.
The UK is now the first country to offer the 4CMenB vaccine—originally developed for meningitis B—as a experimental vaccine against gonorrhea, based on studies suggesting partial cross-protection. The rollout began on August 4, 2025, in sexual health clinics across England, with Wales following suit and Scotland and Northern Ireland planning similar programs.
The mainstream media, including the BBC, has been swiftly enlisted to promote the new Big Pharma vaccine as a scientific breakthrough, flooding headlines with upbeat messaging while glossing over its experimental nature.
The vaccine, however, is not custom-designed for gonorrhea. Instead, it is being repurposed based on data from observational studies showing it may reduce gonorrhoea risk by around 32% to 40%. While hailed as a groundbreaking step in slowing infections and combatting rising antibiotic resistance, critics note that its timing, effectiveness, and long-term strategy remain unclear.
Public health modeling from Imperial College London estimates the program could prevent up to 100,000 infections over the next decade and save the NHS nearly £8 million in treatment costs. But those projections are based on assumptions that some experts consider optimistic given the vaccine’s partial efficacy.
The rollout also comes amid growing concern about antibiotic-resistant strains of gonorrhea. Since 2015, at least 42 cases of ceftriaxone-resistant gonorrhoea have been detected in England, including extensively drug-resistant (XDR)strains that have sparked global health warnings. In this context, the vaccine is being promoted by officials as a preventive tool to buy time while pharmaceutical companies race to develop new antibiotics and dedicated STI vaccines.
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| Gonorrhea, sometimes referred to as “the clap,” is a common STI that can affect sexually active people of any age |
But not everyone is convinced by the narrative. Skeptics argue that the record-breaking STI spike arriving just ahead of a vaccine launch follows a familiar crisis-response cycle that disproportionately benefits pharmaceutical interests.
Some public health advocates have also warned that sexual health services remain underfunded, especially for marginalised groups who are most at risk—and now most targeted by this experimental rollout.
While the 4CMenB vaccine may offer hope in curbing the spread of gonorrhoea, questions linger: Why has the infection rate risen so dramatically in such a short time? Why now? And how much of the response is truly about protecting public health—versus paving the way for broader adult vaccination regimes under the banner of crisis control?
As the NHS pushes forward with the world’s first gonorrhoea vaccination program, the rest of the world is watching—and so are those who believe that public health policy may increasingly serve as a front for pharmaceutical expansion.