Gonorrhea is one of the most common STD’s in the nation, and steadily rising. In just four years, from 2014 to 2018, rates of gonorrhea rose by a startling 63% according to a national report from the Centers for Disease Control. Doctors are ambiguous about the exact reasoning for the spike in cases, but it is likely due to several factors. Recent decades have allowed new medical improvements to birth control options. In addition to new methods of birth control, development of medications to prevent HIV have made it much easier for people to dismiss the use of condoms without fear of pregnancy or HIV. As use of condoms have declined, gonorrhea rates have naturally sky-rocketed.
With an increase in cases (50% of which are asymptomatic, furthering the risk of unknown transmission), mutation and antibiotic resistance are also steadily rising. Gonorrhea bacteria have quickly developed resistance to nearly every antibiotic used to kill them. Cephalosporins are the only class of drugs left that are still largely effective, and gonorrhea is beginning to show resistance to that as well. Antibiotic resistance studies have revealed the bacteria to present a new peculiar behavior: hiding out in the body to avoid detection. They do this by infecting a person’s throat. “Research is starting to show that gonorrhea in the throat is more common that we think. Work from a group in Australia suggests that gonorrhea may be passed through kissing only, though it’s probably rare,” says Dr. Lindley Barbee, an infectious disease specialist and medical director.
As gonorrhea is finding new ways to yield resistance to our treatments, it is effectively changing the game for doctors and forcing scientists to quickly pursue new modes of attack to win the fight. While a few promising new antibiotics are on the horizon, they likely won’t be open for public treatment for several more years. One of the new drugs, solithromycin, has completed its last phase of clinical trials, and two other news drugs, zoliflodacin and gepotidacin, revealed promising results in their phase 2 trials. It is critical to continuously monitor antibiotic resistance in this bacteria and encourage research and development of new treatment regimens. Otherwise, increasing resistance to the current treatment could result in a rise in complications associated with gonorrhea infections. These complications, which predominantly affect women, include infertility, pelvic inflammatory disease, and ectopic pregnancy.
micro biology 