You may have heard about the UK man with the worst case of super gonorrhea ever recorded. Not only did it spark the interest of the media, but it also caught the attention of scientists worldwide. So, what is super gonorrhea and how serious is it?
What Is Super Gonorrhea?
As you may know, gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted infection (STI) that affects both men and women. According to statistics, there are about 468,000 new cases of gonorrhea each year in the US alone.
For years, doctors have successfully treated the condition with two antibiotics. They are ceftriaxone and azithromycin. When gonorrhea is resistant to one of these two drugs, doctors refer to it as super gonorrhea.
Until now, switching to the other drug seemed to improve the effectiveness of the treatment. But an unnamed UK man recently developed a case where neither drug had any effect.
How Serious Is It?
This is the first case of super gonorrhea that’s resistant to both standard antibiotics. As such, doctors are still looking for an effective way to treat it. The man is currently taking ertapenem, an antibiotic used to treat serious infections. The doctors expect to learn more about its effectiveness after a few weeks of treatment.
But they fear that this may not be an isolated case. They are thus planning to test the man’s partners to see if any of them have a similar infection. The goal is to prevent this new strain of gonorrhea from spreading.
Final Word
While super gonorrhea is very rare and not untreatable, it is important to protect yourself from the infection. The best way to do it is to practice safe sex and avoid intimacy with an infected person.
