Unnecessary excessive use of antibiotics during the coronavirus pandemic has created an increase in drug-resistant super gonorrhea strains, according to a new report.
Azithromycin, a common antibiotic used to treat chest and sinus infections, was used during the pandemic to prevent co-infection of hospitalized coronavirus patients and to treat the inflammatory symptoms of severe infections.
But the widespread expansion of the drug – which has been found to have no clinical benefit for patients with COVID-19 – has caused an accumulation of resistance to the bacteria that cause gonorrhea, the World Health Organization (WHO) told the Sun.
“Excessive use of antibiotics in the community can fuel the onset of antimicrobial resistance in gonorrhea,” said a WHO spokesman, who noted that azithromycin was used to treat COVID-19 earlier in the pandemic.
Worsening the situation, the contagion also “disrupted” the usual ITS services by overloading the medical centers and making the scared people go to them, the spokesman said.
“This means that more cases of STIs are not being properly diagnosed, with more people self-medicating,” the WHO representative told the UK newspaper.
“Such a situation may fuel the onset of gonorrhea resistance, including superbug gonorrhea (super gonorrhea) or gonorrhea with high resistance to current antibiotics recommended for its treatment.”
Sun cited a US study that found that 71% of COVID patients received antibiotics – while no more than 4% had reason to need them.
“The use of antibiotics will not treat [COVID-19] but it will create resistance among the bacteria that already exist in our bodies, ”the deputy director general of the WHO for his 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,” she said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week said gonorrhea cases had risen 63 percent since 2014 – warning that it could “facilitate the transmission” of HIV.
Infections can also lead to infertility in both men and women, and can cause blindness in babies of infected mothers.
Kevin Cox, chief executive of British startup Biotaspheric Limited, told Sun that the medical world “urgently [needs] us treatments. “
“People infected with super gonorrhea will infect others and accelerate antimicrobial resistance,” he said.