KARACHI - The World Health Organization (WHO) has sought better prevention and treatment of Gonorrhoea that infects an estimated 78 million people each year.

In its recent communication the United Nations health agency has cautioned that the ailment is becoming harder to treat due to antibiotic resistance.

“The bacteria that cause gonorrhoea are particularly smart. Every time we use a new class of antibiotics to treat the infection, the bacteria evolve to resist them,” Dr Teodora Wi was quoted to have said.

The Medical Officer, Human Reproduction, at the UN World Health Organization (WHO) sharing data from 77 countries  said antibiotic resistance is making gonorrhoea, a common sexually-transmitted infection, much harder, and sometimes impossible, to treat.

WHO noted that the current “last-resort treatment” in the form of extended-spectrum cephalosporins (ECS) has now shown resistance in more than 50 countries. As a result, the agency had issued updated global treatment recommendations last year, advising doctors to give 2 antibiotics: ceftriaxone and azithromycin.

It was regretted that since development of a new antibiotic for gonorrhoea was not attractive for commercial pharmaceutical companies therefore only three candidate drugs are currently in the research-and-development pipeline.

The treatments were said to be taken only for short periods of time, unlike medicines for chronic diseases, and they become less effective as resistance develops, meaning that the supply of new drugs constantly needs to be replenished, according to the agency.

Gonorrhoea can be prevented through safe behaviour, WHO stressed.

It pointed to decreasing condom use, increased urbanization and travel, poor infection detection rates, and inadequate or failed treatment for the estimated 78 million people infected each year.

“These cases may just be the tip of the iceberg, since systems to diagnose and report untreatable infections are lacking in lower-income countries where gonorrhoea is actually more common,” said Dr Wi.

Women are particularly at risk, potentially leading to pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and infertility, as well as increased risk of HIV.

Earlier this year, WHO had announced that it was classifying antibiotics into three categories “Access, Watch and Reserve” to preserve the effectiveness of “last resort” antibiotics.