Antibiotic-Resistant Gonorrhea: How Doctors Are Treating Gonorrhea in the Future

Thanks to Jah Rule and the cast of Empire, we define a clapback as a savage comeback — exactly what gonorrhea, the STI your grandparents knew as “the clap”, is serving right now. A recent report from the World Health Organization shows that antibiotic resistance is making gonorrhea — the second-most reported STI, infecting 820,000 people per year — much harder to treat. And scientists fear that soon, some stubborn strains won’t respond to antibiotics at all.

THE BAD NEWS:

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The disease can infect the genitals, anus, and throat. Unfortunately, many people unknowingly pass it on because they don’t notice symptoms. (If symptoms do occur, they show up in a week or so as painful or burning pee, yellowish or blood-tinged discharge, or bleeding between periods.) Because life’s not fair, complications from gonorrhea affect women more than men. They can contribute to pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, infertility, and elevate your risk of contracting HIV.

The problem is rampant antibiotic use. A recent CDC study found that one-third of all antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary. With people popping meds like candy for any ailment from ear infections to the common cold (neither of which respond to antibiotics, FYI), gonorrhea has evolved to resist nearly every antibiotic to survive. In fact, the CDC’s recommended treatment — a class of antibiotics called cephalosporins — are the last resort of available effective treatments. And when that stops working, we’ll all be screwed.

THE GOOD NEWS:

The CDC is busy tracking resistant infections and educating people to chill out with the Z-Pak, and science is developing new ways to target ARG (antibiotic resistant gonorrhea) through the latest innovation in personalized medicine — individualized genetic screening.

What makes your ladyparts so special you need a freakin’ DNA test? Well, vaginas, snowflakes, and gonorrhea infections have one thing in common — no two are alike. One way to slow the spread of ARG is to pinpoint exactly which antibiotic will work best for your specific strain in your specific body. Currently, the CDC’s treatment protocols are based on international gonorrhea surveillance programs documenting resistant infections. On a large scale, the population-based data works pretty well. Most people get the clap, send an angry text and take a round of antibiotics, then go on with their life as usual. But other people are taking bazooka-level drugs when they only need the bb-gun of antibiotics. Every time a doctor overprescribes or prescribes the wrong antibiotic, the effectiveness of these treatments is chipped away.

By developing new genetic tests, diagnosticians can swab you for a resistance profile. They can pinpoint the specific mutations in your genetic code that don’t play well with certain antibiotics (penicillin, tetracycline, ciprofloxacin, etc). This guards against incorrect and unnecessary prescriptions and opens up more options, giving some lucky patients a chance to use drugs that the CDC no longer recommends for the larger population. And one day soon, we’ll be able to clap back with the right antibiotic right off the bat.

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For even more STI information, keep reading:What You Need to Know About STI TransmissionThe Oral Sex Risk You’re Not Thinking AboutThe Herpes Myth You Need to Stop Believing

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