Antibiotic-resistant gon­or­rhea is a seri­ous pub­lic health issue, but com­par­ing the ill­ness to AIDS, as a recent arti­cle did, is mis­lead­ing, experts say.

A recent CNBC arti­cle with the head­line “Sex Super­bug Could Be ‘Worse Than AIDS’” quoted Alan Chris­tian­son, a natur­o­pathic doc­tor, as say­ing that an antibiotic-resistant strain of the sex­u­ally trans­mit­ted dis­ease gon­or­rhea “might be a lot worse than AIDS in the short run because the bac­te­ria is more aggres­sive and will affect more peo­ple quickly.”

How­ever, some experts called the com­par­i­son hyper­bolic. “I dis­agree with the gen­eral com­par­i­son,” said Dr. Bruce Hirsch, an attend­ing physi­cian in infec­tious dis­eases at North Shore Uni­ver­sity Hos­pi­tal in Man­has­set, N.Y. “The rate of com­pli­ca­tions from gon­or­rhea in terms of sys­temic prob­lems is so much lower than the rate of com­pli­ca­tions from untreated AIDS infec­tion,” Hirsch said. The CNBC arti­cle says that this par­tic­u­lar strain of gon­or­rhea “might put some­one into sep­tic shock and death in a mat­ter of days.” But Hirsch said that the rate of life-threatening com­pli­ca­tions, such as sep­sis, from gon­or­rhea, is about 1% while the rate of death from untreated AIDS is 98%. “At this point in time, AIDS is a fatal infec­tion,” while gon­or­rhea patients very rarely die from the con­di­tion, said Dr. Car­los del Rio, chair of the Global Health Depart­ment at Emory University’s Rollins School of Pub­lic Health. How­ever, both experts stressed that antibiotic-resistant gon­or­rhea was a very seri­ous prob­lem. “There really is no rea­son to com­pare it to any­thing else,” del Rio said.

Gon­or­rhea is becom­ing increas­ingly resis­tant to the antibi­otics doc­tors have to treat it. In 2012, the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion said that there is just one drug left that can be used as a first-line treat­ment for the dis­ease. The drug, cef­tri­ax­one (an antibi­otic deliv­ered by injec­tion) is rec­om­mended to be used along with other antibi­otics, such as such as azithromycin or doxy­cy­cline, for seven days.

So far, the United States has not seen any cases of gon­or­rhea that were com­pletely resis­tant to antibi­otics, the CDC said. In 2011, there were more than 300,000 cases of gon­or­rhea reported to the CDC. Gon­or­rhea is caused by the bac­terium Neis­se­ria gon­or­rhea and is spread through sex­ual activ­ity. Peo­ple with gon­or­rhea often show no symp­toms (men are more likely to have symp­toms than women). In some cases, the dis­ease can cause seri­ous com­pli­ca­tions, includ­ing infer­til­ity and chronic pelvic pain in women, and in men, epi­didymi­tis, a painful inflam­ma­tion of the ducts attached to the tes­ti­cles if left untreated, accord­ing to the CDC.

If gon­or­rhea becomes resis­tant to all antibi­otics, “then we’re going to be in the same sit­u­a­tions that were we in the 1800s,” Hirsch said. The CDC says urgent action is needed to stop the spread of antibiotic-resistant gon­or­rhea, includ­ing the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and study of new antibi­otics treatments.

Proper use of con­doms can reduce the risk of get­ting gon­or­rhea. The best way to pre­vent the dis­ease is not to have sex, or to be in a monog­a­mous rela­tion­ship with a part­ner who has been tested for the dis­ease and is known not to be infected, the CDC says.

(Fox News 5/7/2013)