We have seen many worst things happening this year, that we can’t have more. Whether it was Australian bushfires or the pandemic, there was nothing good that happened in 2020.
It looks like this year is in no mood to stop, as doctors have now started to warn people that an antibiotic-resistant strain of sexually transmitted infection — ‘Super Gonorrhoea’ is on the lose and SARS CoV-2 is to blame.
It was recently reported and the issue has also come under the radar of the World Health Organisation. As per WHO, during the pandemic, patients were offered treatment of antibiotics to prevent cross-infection. This, however, in turn, has made the infection (in this case, gonorrhoea) to be resistant to antibiotics.
Though antibiotics have been useful in saving our lives from the deadliest infection on earth, it is no secret that bacteria has started to get smarter and grow to fight back. In such cases, a hard dose of the antibiotic or combination of it that hasn’t been cracked by the bacteria yet is used to defeat it.
In the current situation, gonorrhoea has turned into Super Gonorrhoea and has stopped responding to Azithromycin. The name sounds familiar? Yes because it’s the same medication that is being used to treat covid-19.
WHO spokesperson said in a statement, “Overuse of antibiotics in the community can fuel the emergence of antimicrobial resistance in gonorrhoea. Azithromycin – a common antibiotic for treating respiratory infections – was used for Covid-19 treatment earlier in the epidemic.”
The spokesperson also revealed that another reason for gonorrhoea to go ‘super’ is due to people self-medicating when doctors and hospitals were focusing primarily on COVID-19 cases.