Research shows a steady increase in Americans struggling with STDs, with an overall 11% rise between 2016 and 2020. Treatment-resistant diseases on the rise include chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis, leading to increased infection among newborns.
To further complicate matters, some STDs are becoming resistant to treatment, so finding new ways to manage the conditions is necessary to try to help people struggling despite getting treatment.
If you live in the Las Vegas, Nevada area, and you’re dealing with an STD you’re finding it hard to treat, Dr. Staci McHale and her dedicated medical team at New Beginnings OB-GYN can help. Here, we examine how these resistances occur, what treatment-resistant STDs to look out for, and what methods are being used to treat them.
Gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis are the diseases most frequently becoming resistant to treatment.
Gonorrhea has the strongest resistance to medications and is the second most commonly reported infectious disease (after chlamydia). With over 800,000 new cases of infection annually, this is becoming an epidemic, especially among college-age women (20-24).
This problem is due to a rapid increase in antibiotic resistance for these three conditions, which is further complicated by many of these cases going undiagnosed for too long. In some cases, the misuse and overuse of antibiotics are creating more resistance, with multidrug-resistant gonorrhea already becoming a problem.
As a result, more people struggling with an infection of any of these STDs are at greater risk of not getting the treatment they need and dealing with greater complications in the future.
University of Southern California STD researcher Jeffrey Klausner, MD states that not all antibiotics are producing these problems. In fact, a large percentage of resistance problems to STD medications is due to older less expensive antibiotics.
To get it under control, here are three things are being done to reduce the resistance issues:
Prevention, screening, and treatment is still the best defense against the spread of these and other STDs. It’s becoming harder in some states due to budget issues, but it’s still the best protocol for controlling the spread of disease.
New antibiotics are being developed, and tests on the new drugs have been promising. The timeframe on when some of them will be available is unknown, but new drugs could be effective on diseases that are resistant to common antibiotics.
A new test has been developed by USC to help determine the proper antibiotic to treat specific strains of gonorrhea, the STD with the biggest resistance. Reducing the misuse and overuse of antibiotics is also effective in better targeting how to treat treatment-resistant STDs.
Developing more solutions for this worldwide issue is a work in progress, but there are still ways to manage these STDs and we can help. Make an appointment with Dr. McHale and New Beginnings OB-GYN today to get the help you need for STDs.
