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The billboard reads “DRUG-RESISTANT GONORHEA ALERT!” on Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, USA. Photo: Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
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Austrian citizen contracted gonorrhea or gonorrhea after having sex with a sex worker in Cambodia. However, the condition is classified as very rare because it does not work with antibiotics.
Researchers working on this case fear that gonorrhea will become increasingly difficult to treat in the future. In a peer-reviewed medical journal Eurosurveillancethey called the emergence of super-rare strains a “global health threat”.
The middle-aged man began to feel pain when urinating five days after using the services of a prostitute in April. He also noticed that there was fluid coming out of his penis. According to the results of the doctor’s examination, he tested positive for gonorrhea and was prescribed antibiotics which are commonly used to treat the disease.
Symptoms subsided two weeks later. The swab result was negative, but a PCR test on the urethral sample showed that Neisseria gonorrhoeae—the main bacterium that causes gonorrhea—was still present in her body. The team of doctors considered the treatment a failure.
He was eventually advised to take amoxicillin-clavulanic acid for seven days, then a second swab test. The results came back negative, but he didn’t get a PCR test. The scientists concluded that the gonorrhea infection was highly resistant to the common antibiotics ceftriaxone and azithromycin.
Cases of super gonorrhea transmission first reported in the UK in 2018, which then happened again in Australia and infected two boys. Report results Eurosurveillance noted that all of these cases were related to Southeast Asia.
“If the strain manages to carry out continuous transmission, gonorrhea may not be curable,” explained the researchers.
Gonorrhea can cause infertility and increase the risk of HIV infection if not treated immediately. Symptoms that are common in men include anyang-anyangan, swollen testicles, and a pus-like discharge from the penis. Meanwhile, in women, usually there will be pain when urinating, excessive vaginal discharge, and bleeding that occurs between menstruation.
Gonorrhea is the most common sexually transmitted disease after chlamydia. The World Health Organization estimates 82 million people gonorrhea in 2020, with the threat of antimicrobial resistance becoming increasingly real.
WHO disclose Antimicrobial resistance has spread rapidly since the early 20th century, citing higher rates of resistance to “last resort” antibiotics, such as cefixime and ceftriaxone.
“Microbes” [gonore] seems to have evolved into a superbug,” Dr. Magnus Unemo, head of the World Health Organization’s Collaborative Center for Gonorrhea and Other Sexually Transmitted Infections in Sweden, told New Yorker in 2012. Superbugs are bacteria that cannot be killed by regular antibiotics.
“This is what we have feared for a long time,” he continued.
The sex workers suspected of transmitting the gonorrhea bacteria have not been identified. Ann Chorn, project manager for the NGO Cambodian Women for Peace and Development, explained that contraception is not easily available in Cambodia.
“We found, sex workers [kesulitan mengakses] healthcare services since the COVID-19 pandemic,” Chorn told VICE World News. “Comfort women can’t buy condoms either.”
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