- ‘Super-gonorrhea’ started tending to Twitter this past weekend after a representative of the World Health Organization told the Sun that the STIs may be more resistant to antibiotics.
- The pandemic has not caused a major outbreak of gonorrhea, nor do we have evidence of increasing cases yet.
- But experts told Insider that over-prescribing antibiotics – whether trying to treat COVID-19 or treating related infections – could make STIs more resistant to treatment.
- Supergonorrhea is not worse or transmissible than gonorrhea, but has fewer treatment options.
- Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.
If you scrolled through Twitter over the weekend, you may have encountered a trending and frightening phrase: super-gonorrhea.
—Strictly (@christoq) 27 December 2020
The social media panic came after a representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) told the Sun that the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea may become more resistant to certain antibiotics used to treat it, threatening an increase in increase cases of incurable ‘supergonorrhea’. (The term comes from ‘superbugs’, a colloquial term used to refer to bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.)
Although there is still no evidence of an increase in cases of pandemic-related drug-resistant gonorrhea, experts told Insider it is a good problem.
The more bugs are exposed to the drugs used to kill them, the more familiar they are with mutations to find ways to survive them. Azithromycin, an antibiotic used to treat gonorrhea, is also commonly prescribed for breast infections and pneumonia – conditions that are common in COVID-19 patients. It was even tested early in the pandemic as a treatment for severe COVID-19.
Although it has since been considered ineffective for the treatment of COVID-19, experts say that azithromycin is still increasingly being prescribed, which could exacerbate the existing problem with superfruits such as antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea.
What is supergonorrhea?
According to Dr. Edward Hook, director of the STD control program for the Jefferson County Department of Health in Alabama, gonorrhea has gradually become resistant to the antibiotics used to treat it.
Ciprofloxacin was formerly an antibiotic recommended by the CDC to treat gonorrhea in the 1990s, but by 2007 the agency changed its protocol: a high percentage of cases of gonorrhea are reported to be antibiotic resistant. The treatment was changed to use a combination of the antibiotics ceftriaxone and azithromycin.
More than a decade later in 2018, health officials showed an increase in cases of azithromycin-resistant gonorrhea, and updated the treatment recommendations. According to doctors, doctors should treat patients with one injection of ceftriaxone.
Experts believe that doctors who prescribe more antibiotics to treat COVID-19 during the pandemic, especially azithromycin, may be contributing to this resistance.
“The indiscriminate use of antibiotics can increase the pressure on the development of resistance to gonorrhea,” said Dr. Peter Leone, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Gillings School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina, told Insider.
This resistance, coupled with fewer people being tested and treated for STIs during the pandemic, could be of concern.
The symptoms of ‘supergonorrhea’ and gonorrhea do not differ – but the treatment options do
While supergonorrhea sounds scary, experts say the term itself is more frightening than justified.
Dr. H. Hunter Handsfield, professor emeritus of medicine at the University of Washington Center for AIDS and STDs and advisor to the American Association for Sexual Health, told Insider ‘antibiotic resistance’ does not ‘strengthen gonorrhea or any other SOA because it does not makes transmission easier or symptoms worse.
The only real difference between gonorrhea and supergonorrhea is that the latter have fewer treatment options, which is why Handsfield finds the term inappropriate.
Experts believe that antibiotic-resistant STIs are not an immediate health crisis, as ceftriaxone is still effective in treating gonorrhea, but the concern with these types of STIs is that they are more difficult to treat.
“The cause for concern has less to do with the fact that the process will continue – or may even be accelerated – and more to do with the fact that we have fewer and fewer options for treating gonorrhea,” Hook told Insider.
Experts recommend that people continue to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases and that they should apply safe sex and COVID-19 precautions.
Read more:
How to know if you have genital warts or herpes
How to choose the right condom and material to protect against STIs and pregnancy
Transmission of HIV through oral sex is rare – here’s how you can reduce the risk and avoid contracting it