Antibiotic-resistant diseases could be the biggest killer in the world in 30 years
By Carlton Férment | VICE News | April 18, 2016
Bad news, rubber-less shaggers: There's a new strain of super gonorrhea afoot in Britain, and it's heading your way.
As it's evolved, this strain of the sexually transmitted disease informally known as "the clap" has become resistant to the drugs previously used to combat it. Following an outbreak of this super gonorrhea in the north of England at the end of last year, there are now fears it's spreading across the country, with cases popping up in the West Midlands and the South East, according to Public Health England (PHE).
While the term "super gonorrhea" might, at surface level, sound quite funny, there's a much darker side to this story. The drug-resistant STD is indicative of other bacterias becoming resistant to treatment—a problem that Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies says is as bad as the threat of terrorism. George Osborne also warns that antibiotic-resistant diseases could be the biggest killer in the world in 30 years. Gonorrhea can also damage the womb to the point of infertility, which is obviously very worrying when it comes to these increasingly untreatable strains.
The drugs used to treat the disease, a jab of ceftriaxone and a pill of azithromycin, are losing ground to the STD, with the former now the only one that still works.
Away from the whole super-strain news, the number of people in the UK diagnosed with gonorrhea has more than doubled in the past few years, making it second only to chlamydia as the top sex disease of choice. And it's not only the clap that's on the rise; reported cases of syphilis rose by 63 percent between 2010 and 2014, according to PHE.
This spike is supposedly down to the number of unprotected sexual encounters between heathens. So, moral of the story: If you don't want diseased genitalia—and you presumably don't—then wrap it up before you use it.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Holy shit! First it’s global warming, now this. Mankind is doomed!
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