Presently, doctors in the UK are combining the only two drugs that kill the Neisseria gonorrhea, but the saddening report received on Thursday confirmed that there is a strong possibility that treatments will become ineffective.
In his statement to the press, Dr Jonathan Mermin, director of the CDC’s National Center for preventing HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, STD, and tuberculosis, said this:
“The confluence of emerging drug resistance and very limited alternative options for treatment creates a perfect storm for future gonorrhea treatment failure in the US. History shows us that bacteria will find a way to outlast the antibiotics we’re using to treat it.
We are running just one step ahead in order to preserve the remaining treatment option for as long as possible.”
Daily Mail adds that there are only two antibiotics remaining that can treat gonorrhea: azithromycin and ceftriaxone, that the infection had become immune to penicillin, tetracycline and fluoroquinolones.
In the UK, a group of British doctors reportedly spent three weeks struggling to treat a man of the infection in his throat using a combination therapy, but it all failed.
And this has called for concern as gonorrhea is a very common disease, and one which keeps building up and rejecting forms of treatments. The terrifying part is that many people are not diagnosed because of the minimal symptoms, until the full outburst of the infection.
Here’s the breakdown of the timeline of the infection:
“Those who do experience symptoms may have pain, burning, discharge in the uterus, Anu$, throat, mouth or penis – wherever they have contracted the infection. Without treatment it can lead to chronic health problems.
If the bacteria gets in the blood stream it can cripple one’s joints or even infect the heart. Infected women can be left infertile, suffer an ectopic pregnancy, or suffer permanent chronic pelvic pain.
Pregnant women with gonorrhea risk passing the infection onto their baby during childbirth, potentially leaving the infant blind.
Men can develop persistant testicular pain and infertility.”
For prevention, the CDC is urging people to use more Cond0ms as it has no estimate of how long it would take before gonorrhea becomes completely untreatable.