How should doctors protect people exposed to drug-resistant meningitis?

When someone gets sick with meningococcal disease, doctors rush to give antibiotics to their close contacts to prevent more cases. But a growing problem is that the bacteria can become resistant to a key drug, ciprofloxacin. Now, the CDC has issued guidance for health departments, telling them to switch to other preferred antibiotics when an area hits a certain threshold of these resistant cases. This guidance is a map for public health teams, not a report on how effective the new antibiotics are. It doesn't tell us what those specific drugs are, or what happened to people who took them. The advice is purely about responding to the signal of drug resistance. For now, it means health officials have a clearer plan to try and stay ahead of a dangerous infection.