Several common sexually transmitted infections, including syphilis and gonorrhea, have long been treated with antibiotics — but overuse and misuse of that very treatment have fueled antimicrobial resistance in recent years as the diseases evolve defenses against the drugs. Antimicrobial resistance kills an estimated 700,000 people per year, and if not contained, is predicted to cause up to 10 million deaths each year by 2050.
In particular, resistance to antibiotics is growing rapidly in cases of Neisseria gonorrhoeae, which has continued to avert all of the first-line antimicrobial drugs introduced to treat it over the past 90 years, earning it the nickname “super gonorrhea.”
This has led to concerns that in the future, the bacteria — which can cause infertility, inflammation, increased vulnerability to HIV, and blindness in newborn babies — could become untreatable. The African continent currently bears a “disproportionate share” of the global burden of gonorrhea cases, according to the World Health Organization.