- And just when you thought this wretched year couldn't get any worse.
Let’s just say that 2020 is unlikely to go down in history as anyone’s favorite year. There’s just so much that has gone wrong this year that many people are counting hours until it’s all finally over.
But hey, there’s only a few days left to go! There’s nothing that could possibly go wrong in such a short time, right? Right?!
Oh *********, what is it now?
Well, there’s the COVID-19 pandemic that’s still going on. And the massive overuse of antibiotics to treat the coronavirus is setting the perfect scene for another disease to flourish.
That disease is gonorrhea, and not just any gonorrhea. The World Health Organization (WHO) is warning the gonorrhea we all know and hate is rapidly mutating into a drug-resistant, turbocharged super gonorrhea.
According to the WHO, should the super gonorrhea go untreated, it could lead to a five-fold increase in HIV transmissions. It might also increase eye infections that could lead to blindness.
Ain’t that a bang to end to year with.
Rising Cases
It’s not like gonorrhea in itself is anything new. There are more than 90 million gonorrhea carriers in the world.
But the bad news is, according to the WHO, that this number is rising by 17% each and every year. That’s 15 million more cases annually.
So far the majority of new gonorrhea cases has been cropping up in Africa. However, a WHO spokesman told The Sun that cases in the West are rising at an “alarming rate”.
In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that gonorrhea infections have skyrocketed in the past five or so years. Case numbers have grown by 63% since 2014, and by 2030, more than 5 million Americans could be living with gonorrhea.
It’s not any better for the UK. According to the WHO, the island kingdom has the highest gonorrhea rate in all of Europe. By 2030, the country could be seeing 420,000 new cases annually.
And it’s all looking like it’ll only get worse. All thanks to the pandemic.
Antibiotics to the Rescue… Or Not
The WHO spokesman said a growing number of gonorrhea infections is being found in hospitals. Their excessive use of antibiotics is fueling the super gonorrhea’s drug-resistance and giving it an optimal environment to flourish.
But pump those brakes, hotshot. Antibiotics? Isn’t the coronavirus a, uh… Virus?
Indeed, it is. The antibiotics that are supposedly being used to treat COVID-19 aren’t doing diddly for the ‘Rona, but they sure are giving gonorrhea a helping hand.
“Overuse of antibiotics in the community can fuel the emergence of antimicrobial resistance in gonorrhea. Azithromycin – a common antibiotic for treating respiratory infections – was used for COVID-19 treatment earlier in the epidemic,” the WHO spokesman said.
According to Professor Philip Howard, president of the British Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, roughly one third of UK patients admitted to hospital with proven of suspected COVID-19 get antibiotics. That is despite less than 1% of them having any kind of bacterial infection.
Similarly, in the U.S., 71% of corona patients got antibiotics. Only 4% actually needed them.
Service Disruption
It’s not all about antibiotics, though. The pandemic has severely disrupted practically all health services, including ones for sexual health and STDs.
With funding to STD services cut, people are not getting diagnosed properly, said the WHO spokesman. This means they’ll continue living normally, doing the horizontal mambo, and spreading the virus further.
“More [STD] cases are not diagnosed properly, with more people self-medicating as a result,” said the spokesman. Among those self-medications could be – you guessed it – antibiotics.
“Such a situation can fuel emergence of resistance in gonorrhea including gonorrhea superbug or gonorrhoea with high level resistance to current antibiotics recommended to treat it.”
Rise of a Superbug
In short, the mismanagement of STD services and wanton use of antibiotics is creating a gonorrhea bomb that could explode at any moment. Kevin Cox, executive chair of UK-based anti-infective drug maker Biotaspheric, told The Sun that the super gonorrhea could soon pop up.
In the nightmare scenario, it will by that time be untreatable with current antibiotics. And it doesn’t take all that much for that to become reality.
According to CDC, gonorrhea is currently resistant to all classes of antibiotics save one. Should it start resisting the last one too… Oh boy.
“People infected with super gonorrhea will infect others and accelerate antimicrobial resistance. We urgently need new treatments,” Cox said.
In the meantime, don’t take antibiotics unless you’re absolutely sure you need them. Also, maybe be more careful about, let’s say, frolicking unprotected.
The super gonorrhea is out there, and it wants YOU.