There’s a little-known sexually transmitted disease (STD) that’s on the rise – and could soon become a very big problem.
Sexual health experts warn that Mycoplasma genitalium (MG) has the potential to become a drug-resistant superbug within a matter of years.
Research by the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) found that over 70 percent of sexual health experts said that if current practices do not change, MG will become resistant to first and second line antibiotics within a decade. Left unchecked, they say this could result in thousands of women each year at increased risk of infertility from pelvic inflammatory disease caused by MG.
As a result of these daunting statistics, BASHH have just released draft guidelines to help the public and health services deal with this impending crisis.
“MG is rapidly becoming the new superbug: it’s increasingly resistant to most of the antibiotics we use to treat chlamydia and changes its pattern of resistance during treatment so it's like trying to hit a moving target,” Dr Peter Greenhouse, sexual health consultant from the UK, said in a statement.
If you’ve never heard of MG, that’s not surprising. The infection was only discovered in the 1980s, yet scientists didn’t know until years later that it was actually transmitted via sex. This lack of awareness is also part of the problem; the new data suggests that just one in 10 sexual health clinics in the UK have the right kits to diagnose the infection.