Gonorrhea the Great

Some Scary Statistics

According to an August 2019 ScienceDaily article, the bacterium that causes gonorrhea has relentlessly beat all of the medicinal world. Just in between the years of 2013 and 2017, gonorrhea diagnoses have markedly increased by 67%, yet the antibiotics that used to stop it have proved helpless. The once-reliable drugs used to include penicillin, tetracycline, and ciprofloxacin, yet Neisseria gonorrhoeae has successfully developed resistance to these. In 2010, once Neisseria gonorrhoeae had developed resistance to the last remaining class of antibiotics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began recommending “dual therapy” to patients. This means that doctors must now prescribe two drugs at the same time in order to combat this strong bacterium. Although gonorrhea is not fatal, it can cause severe problems that last a lifetime.

A Public Health Concern

According to a recent report by the CDC, we are currently down to one last class of antibiotics that is effective against gonorrhea. This is a huge public health concern for the United States because gonorrhea control relies on our ability to treat the infection. In 1993, ciprofloxacin, a fluoroquinolone, and two cephalosporins (ceftriaxone and cefixime) were required treatments for gonorrhea. By 2006, nearly 14% of samples were resistant to Cipro in all regions of the country and in all homo- and heterosexual populations. By 2007, the cephalosporins were the only remaining recommended treatments for the second most commonly reported disease in the United States. And to put the icing on the cake, up to 30% of new gonorrhea infections that are reported each year are resistant to at least one drug minimum.

Severe Side Effects

If gonorrhea is left untreated, then this strong bacterium can be transmitted to others and produce severe health outcomes. These problems can include infertility, ectopic pregnancy, and increased risk for HIV in the future. There are multiple factors that lead the drive for increased gonorrhea exposure in the world. This includes expansive drug use, poverty, the stigma behind STDs, and unstable housing that can reduce access to STD prevention. Moreover, decreased condom use among vulnerable populations (including gay and bisexual men) can also lead to increased exposure to gonorrhea. At the local and state level, there have been detrimental cuts to STD programs in recent years which reduces patient follow ip and linkage to care management. These factors prove significant when untreated gonorrhea may lead to newborn deaths related to STDs, revealing a marked 22% increase in the time between 2017 and 2018. All of these statistics about gonorrhea’s impact and resistance, although scary, could lead to increased awareness among the population so that those who are worried about their risk for STDs can get tested and treated in the most effective way.