Findings from a new study, announced Sept. 14, show that incidents of gonorrhea are on the rise in gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men ( GBMSM ).
The study, findings of which were delivered by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) at the 21st Meeting of the International Society for Sexually Transmitted Disease Research in Brisbane, Australia, showed that incidents of gonorrhea among GBMSM increased from 1,170 cases per 100,000 persons in 2010, to over 1,400 per 100,000 per 100,000 persons in 2013. Among heterosexual men and women, the rate was consistently about 100 cases per 100,000 persons each year from 2010-2013.
The study utilized data from the STD Surveillance Network ( SSuN ) and was one of the first to examine gonorrhea infection rates among GBMSM in multiple areas.
Mark Stenger, an epidemiologist at CDC and one of the study's co-authors, told Windy City Times that there was likely not one single factor contributing to those increased rates.
"What we think is happening is that there are multiple factors," he noted. "Some are social, some are behavioral, some of them are structural—in fact, it might be things like access to screenings or inability to protect oneself in sexual encounters. Another thing we think might be contributing is that, because there is a fairly high rate of disease in the partner pool among [GBMSM], they might be becoming reinfected at a higher rate than heterosexual [male] or female counterparts."
Stenger and his colleagues were not able to break the respondents down by race or ethnicity in the study. "That points out the need to have better information about person who are being diagnosed. What we'll do is work with our partners to collect better information, and in the future we aim to do analysis by specific race and ethnicity, as well break down the groups a little better….The inequality of the burden of disease amongst a marginalized population is important for public health officials to address"
Local and state health departments should work harder to understand the health needs of gay and bisexual needs to better calculate infection rates to understand differences in burdens of disease, he said, noting that providers should be getting information on the gender of a person's sex partners after an initial diagnosis. Those providers, as well as local LGBT organizations, need to increase awareness about the infection as well.
Besides a number of immediate medical complications, a gonorrhea infection can also facilitate the transmission of HIV, Stenger added. He further explained, "Gonorrhea has the capacity to develop resistance to treatments over time … So we want to make sure that we are treating people with appropriate medicine, to make sure that we are curing their disease and that we're not seeing the emergence of an antibiotic-resistant strain of gonorrhea."
