Image courtesy CIDRAP

There is a new antibiotic-resistant strain of gonorrhea which could be more deadly than Aids, a CNBC report has warned in the United States. According to medics, the new strain could claim more fatalities than Aids in the event of a break out of the disease.

What makes this particular strain of gonorrhea fatal is the fact that it’s drug-resistant and can kill a victim within days. It reportedly kills half of those exposed and infects one in 20 hospital patients—which raises the threat of an outbreak to emergency levels.

GONORRHEA CAN GO UNDETECTED

Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted disease (STD) caused by a bacterium which if left untreated, can cause severe medical complications, such as infertility in women, debilitating pain, sterility in men and life threatening heart infections. Gonorrhea can go undetected especially in women where normally symptoms don’t show and even when they do are often mild and can be mistaken for a bladder or vaginal infection.

DRUG RESISTANT

Cases of gonorrhea becoming resistant to some drugs have been reported in the past, necessitating higher dosages of drugs and stronger antibiotics to counter the strains.

According to a research published in February last year in the agency’s journal, Morbity and Mortality report, the CDC pointed at an increased number of treatment-resistant infections to the once curable disease.

In the report, CDC researchers had mentioned that cephalosporin-resistant strains of gonorrhea were emerging in the United States, with increasing rates being seen especially in men who have sex with other men (MSM) living in the western United States. Gonorrhea is the second-most commonly reported STD in the U.S

GONORRHEA AMONG TOP FIVE HEALTH THREATS

Even though at the moment not a single case has been reported so far in Kenya, it’s better to be warned beforehand especially with the increased cases of infidelity and homosexuality. To date, more than 30 million people have already died worldwide from AIDS-related complications so if the new strain of gonorrhea is more fatal than HIV/AIDS then it could be among the top killer diseases in the world if it eventually breaks out.

‘Antibiotic-resistant infections’ e.g. forms of gonorrhea, tuberculosis and salmonella were the top three among CDC’s top five health threats in 2014.