Australia is observing massive increase in sexually transmitted diseases, especially Gonorrhoea and Syphilis.
Gonorrhoea spreads from the sexual discharges during sexual intercourse with infected person. It can spread through oral or anal sex also and cause pharyngeal and anal gonorrhoea respectively.
World Health Organisation has used the term “super gonorrhoea” for the disease causing bacteria Neisseria gonorrhoeae in Business Today. As per the current situation, Covid-19 outbreak has resulted in overuse of antibiotics Azithromycin, which is also used for the treatment of Gonorrhoea. This has made the N. gonorrhoeae strongly resistant to the drugs. The only method to control the serious effects of disease is to shorten the time between infection and diagnosis. Most of the patients dont experience any symptoms, but in severe conditions there can be vaginal discharge, pain during sexual intercourse, thick discharge from penis, swelling or pain in eyes, arthritis, pharyngitis, fever and even blindness. It can cause infertility in both male and female. Serious effects on pregnant women and inborn babies are also observed like premature birth, abortion, conjuctivitis in newborn.
Gonorrhoea testing Australia: Nucleic Acid Amplification Test (NAAT) is majorly adapted by most of the commercial laboratories and is also recommended by health department of Australian Government. It is more specific and accurate then other bacterial culture tests. This test can be performed at home or lab from self collected or lab specimen of vaginal swab or urine samples. For pharyngeal gonorrhoea oral swab is used to test the infection. The genetic material(DNA) of bacteria is detected in this test.
The results of home tests must be additionally screened by clinical laboratories. If the result is negative and there are no symptoms, then there is no need to worry except a few cases where sexual partner is infected. For second case the person must be tested again after 3-4 weeks, as it can take time to show positive in a test.
If the test comes positive, quick efforts should be made to start the treatment of gonorrhoea. It can be cured easily with antibiotics if detected on earlier stages.
Sexual health workers, man having sex with man, people having multiple sex partners, people having unsafe sex with a new partner must get themselves Gonorrhoea testing Australia and other sexually transmitted diseases.
The Australian government is running campaigns and has implemented several guidelines like blood‑borne virus (BBV) and sexually transmissible infections (STI) strategies, in areas prone to STDs.
These campaigns include:
-Spreading awareness about safe sex, self test kits for STDs.
-Opening new clinical laboratories and vaccination centers in disease prone areas and enabling free tests under special health schemes.
-Educating students at school level about seriousness of STDs.
