Gonorrhea “Gone Wild”

What is Gonorrhea?

Gonorrhea is one of the many sexual transmitted diseases that are still wrecking havoc on the world. According to SFAF, Gonorrhea is the second most commonly notified sexually transmitted infection across the EU/EEA countries, with almost 500,000 reported cases between 2007 and 2016. Gonorrhea is an infection that is caused by Neisseria gonorrhoeae, a gram-negative diplococci bacteria. In most circumstances, the Mayo Clinic emphasizes that gonorrhea shows no symptoms, but when symptoms do appear, it often affects the urethra, rectum, or throat, and specifically for females, also the cervix. Additionally, although gonorrhea is most commonly spread during sex, it can also be passed to babies during childbirth; in that case, eyes are also an target infectious location. Some symptoms for men include painful urination, pus-like discharge from the tip of the penis, and pain or swelling in one testicle. For women, some symptoms include increased vaginal discharge, painful urination, vaginal bleeding between periods (such as after vaginal intercourse), painful intercourse, and abdominal pelvic pain. If left untreated, gonorrhea can lead to significant complications such as infertility, increased risk of HIV/AIDS, infection spread to other areas of the body, etc. 

Gonorrhea’s Resisting??? 

According to SFAF, to treat gonorrhea, the current recommended therapy regimen includes azithromycin, an antibiotic. However, there has been recent and increasing signs of resistance from the Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteria to azithromycin. Antibiotics such as cefixime and ceftriaxone that are also used to treat gonorrhea have also proved to become less and less effective due to antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance is a threat to many current treatable infections, not only Gonorrhea. The end result is the same though; if the resistance proceeds faster than our rate of research and development for newer antibiotics, there WON’T be any antibiotics left for us to fight these pathogens anymore. It’s gotten to the point where we’ve had to resort to our most dangerous antibiotics that are only used when nothing else is effective anymore – and even then some of those antibiotics have been ineffective.    

Solution: Drug Combinations? 

One way that scientists have determined could be an effective counter to the antibiotic resistance is varying drug combinations. According to medicalxpress, a research team from University Hospitals Birmingham found that combining the antibiotics gentamicin and azithromycin proved as effective as ceftriaxone and azithromycin against genital gonorrhea, prior to the resistance that gonorrhea is building against the combo. The only setback to this is that the gentamicin/azithromycin combo did not clear throat or rectal gonorrhea as effectively. As a result, professor Jonathon Ross, chief investigator of the Birmingham trial, believes that “ceftriaxone should remain the first line treatment for gonorrhea, with gentamicin as an alternative particularly for patients with gentical infections, and those who are allergic or intolerant to ceftriaxone”. Further research definitely needs to be done to identify more alternatives to ceftriaxone for the ever-growing antibiotic resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae.