HEALTHY LIVING: Antibiotic-resistant STD considered a major threat
Published 7:00 pm, Sunday, August 7, 2011
Over the 80 or so years that antibiotics have been available the bacteria they kill have continually adapted in order to become resistant to the drugs. As evidence of this, a new antibiotic-resistant strain of the STD gonorrhea has been discovered in Japan and elsewhere in recent weeks.
Approximately 700,000 new cases of gonorrhea are counted each year in the U. S. It has been one of the more adaptive bacteria, becoming resistant to each new type of antibiotic within a few years of the drug’s release. What has health workers concerned now is that there are no new antibiotic types in the works—this “superbug” has, at least for now, outstripped medicine’s ability to stay one step ahead.
While officials stress that no cases of this superbug have yet been found in America, with international travel so readily available its arrival here is probably a matter of time.
Another challenge to treating or controlling this STD is that about half the people infected with it have no symptoms or at least delayed symptoms. This means that a non-monogamous person may infect several others without knowing it.
Additionally, we are now seeing a large increase in sexual activity among those 45 years of age and older. The low risk of pregnancy is apparently a factor in this situation. Seniors may not realize that their risk of STDs are just as great as for any sexually active population.
With an untreatable STD can only come greater responsibility on the part of each individual. Testing, protection or monogamy/abstinence may become the only ways to be fully protected.