super gonorrhea warning amid antibiotic overuse

the world health organization (who) is warning that a drug-resistant strain of the highly infectious, sexually transmitted disease is on the rise and efforts to combat covid-19 have only accelerated the problem. it recently updated its treatment recommendations in an attempt to address the issue:

“overuse of antibiotics in the community can fuel the emergence of antimicrobial resistance in gonorrhea,” a who spokesman told the sun online . “azithromycin — a common antibiotic for treating respiratory infections — was used for covid-19 treatment earlier in the epidemic.”

commonly known as the clap, gonorrhea is caused by an infection from the bacteria neisseria gonorrhea , according to the government of canada . it can be spread through unprotected sex with an infected person or be passed from a mother to her newborn infant. in women, the infection can result in pelvic inflammation disease, which can cause abdominal pain, fever and infertility. in men, it can cause epididymitis, a painful inflammation of the tubes leading to the testicles, which can also cause infertility if not treated.

the rate of reported cases in canada has increased more than 81 per cent over the 10 years leading up to the pandemic. although there were just over 28,000 cases of gonorrhea diagnosed in the country in 2017 , the most recent year for which data is available, that number is likely on the rise as an over-reliance on antibiotics has made the infection difficult to treat.

in the early days of the pandemic, as overwhelmed hospitals reached their breaking point, doctors threw everything in sight at the virus. in the uk, for example , this meant that three-quarters of patients were given antibiotics for their covid-like symptoms while less than one per cent of patients actually had a bacterial infection. similar studies in the u.s. showed 71 per cent of patients were treated with antibiotics when they were only needed by four per cent of patients.

subsequent trials have confirmed that many early treatment efforts, such as the use of azithromycin, had no effect on the symptoms of covid-19 patients. according to the cdc, gonorrhea is now resistant to all but one class of antibiotics and half of all modern-day infections have shown resistance to at least one antibiotic.

dave yasvinski is a writer with  healthing.ca

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super gonorrhea warning amid antibiotic overuse

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