World Health Organisation has said the overuse of antibiotics to treat the coronavirus — sometimes unnecessarily — has caused a sexually transmitted infection, Super Gonorrhoea to find a new way to thrive.
Gonorrhea is a bacterial condition caused by a sexually transmitted bacterium that affects both males and females, while Super Gonorrhea is a type of Gonorrhea Superbug that can’t be killed by antibiotics.
Health experts fear that excessive use of antibiotics may make this infection “untreatable”.
WHO states the sexually transmitted infection (STI) may become even more resistant to the recommended treatments like azithromycin, which typically is used for chest and sinus infections. Azithromycin has seen an increase in usage during the pandemic.
A WHO spokesperson told British media outlet The Sun;
Such a situation can fuel the emergence of resistance in gonorrhea including gonorrhea superbug (super gonorrhea) or gonorrhea with high-level resistance to current antibiotics recommended to treat it.
The so-called ‘Super Gonorrhea’ does not respond to the normal first-line treatments, making it particularly dangerous and uncomfortable for those afflicted.
Doctors and medical experts have long warned of the possibility that “superbugs” that are antibiotic-resistant could become more commonplace.
According to the WHO spokesperson, one reason the new strain is exploding is because most people aren’t going to the hospital unless they come down with COVID-19 symptoms.
It added that patients are self-medicating, meaning doctors aren’t detecting the disease in time.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said cases of gonorrhea, which is caused by the bacteria Neisseria gonorrhoeae, have increased 63 per cent since 2014.
The US agency has also warned that this could “facilitate transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)” and can also cause eye infections.
In Europe, UK has the highest gonorrhea rate and there are likely to be more than 420,000 new cases annually by 2030.
