Gonorrhea needs to be GONE.

Gonorrhea is the second most common STI and also has very serious consequences, especially in women. According to the Nationwide Children’s Hosptial when Gonorrhea is left untreated in women, “it can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease (40% of infected women) that can result in severe long-term health implications such as infertility, adverse pregnancy outcomes and devastating neonatal complications”. I think that this should be very scary for females yet many sexually active people are probably oblivious to how serious Gonorrhea is. Another alarming statistic is that 80% of females who have Gonorrhea show no symptoms. This can lead to long periods of time with no treatment as well as increase the transmission of Gonorrhea every time an infected woman has a new sexual partner. Due to lack of education and the high rate of asymptomatic infections Gonorrhea is increasing in incidence throughout the United States and becoming more of a concern. 

One example where Gonorrhea incidence is increasing dramatically in “Texas counties with high shale drilling activity” according to researchers at the Yale School of Public Health. Shale drilling, also known as fracking, draws a large amount of qualified young men to a small rural area. Since these men are away from their homes for long periods of time they tend to explore sexually with new partners. This is why researchers believe that fracking sites have seen an increased incidence of Gonorrhea and other STI’s. I would imagine this same phenomenon occurs in areas like college campuses and military bases where there may be a large amount of single young men who are looking for “activities” to occupy their free time. I think that local, county-level governments need to recognize these risk factors for increased STI transmission and implement measures to make people are of how transmission works. I also think that frequent STI testing should be encouraged since many infections show no symptoms. 

On the bright side, recent studies done by the previously mentioned Nationwide Children’s Hosptial have discovered a new, targeted treatment for Gonorrhea. Treating Gonorrhea in the past has been difficult due to antibiotic resistance constantly making drugs ineffective after a short period of time. These new drugs carbamazepine and methyldopa already exist and have been used to treat other conditions; they are simply being repurposed to treat Gonorrhea. These types of drugs teach the host cell to recognize when gonorrhea bacteria bind and then kill the bacteria, they are also less prone to antibiotic resistance. I think this could be revolutionary in the treatment of gonorrhea and also help control transmission if people can be treated more effectively. Antibiotic resistance is a problem we have discussed extensively in class and this is a promising step towards avoiding that problem.