According to a new report, unnecessary overuse of antibiotics during the coronavirus pandemic has created an increase in drug-resistant super gonorrhea strains.
Azithromycin, a common antibiotic used to treat chest and sinus infections, has been used during the pandemic to prevent coinfection of hospitalized patients with coronavirus and to treat inflammatory symptoms of severe infections.
But the widespread distribution of the drug, which has since not been shown to be beneficial for patients with COVID-19, has led to an accumulation of bacterial resistance that causes gonorrhea, according to the World Health Organization ( WHO).
“Excessive use of antibiotics in the community can fuel the emergence of antimicrobial resistance to gonorrhea,” a WHO spokesman said at the outset, noting that azithromycin was used for COVID treatment. -19 before the pandemic.
To make matters worse, the contagion has also “altered” regular STI services by overloading medical centers and making people afraid to go there, the spokesman said.
“This means that more cases of STIs are not being diagnosed correctly and that, as a result, more people are self-medicating,” the WHO representative told the British newspaper.
“This situation can fuel the onset of gonorrhea resistance, including superbug gonorrhea (super gonorrhea) or gonorrhea with high-level resistance to current antibiotics recommended to treat it.”
The Sun cited an American study that showed that 71% of patients with COVID received antibiotics, while at most 4% had reasons to need them.
“The use of antibiotics will not be treated [COVID-19] but it will create resistance among the bacteria that already exist in our bodies, ”WHO Deputy Director-General for its antimicrobial resistance division, Dr Hanan Balkhy, told the British newspaper.
“The bottom line is that antibiotics should not be prescribed unless there is a clear medical indication for them,” he said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said last week that cases of gonorrhea have increased by 63 percent since 2014, warning that it “can facilitate the transmission” of HIV.
Infections can also cause infertility in both men and women, as well as cause blindness in babies of infected mothers.
Kevin Cox, chief executive of British start-up Biotaspheric Limited, told Sun that the medical world “urgently” [needs] new treatments “.
“People infected with super gonorrhea will infect other people and accelerate antimicrobial resistance,” he said.