Three nightmare superbugs have become so virulent that they pose an “urgent” risk to the health of Americans, says the CDC. The first is C. difficile, a deadly diarrhea-causing infection; the second, a bloodstream infection that kills half the people it infects; and the third, a drug-resistant form of gonorrhea — an age-old sexually transmitted disease that's evolved to become resistant to the last drug available against it, raising the prospect of a sexually transmitted global epidemic. This “super gonorrhea” tends to spread through oral sex. The microbes sit in the throat, multiply, and can enter the bloodstream, infecting the skin, heart valves — and even the brain. Some public officials predict that super gonorrhea will be widespread in five to eight years, and that we'll be powerless to fight it. “We're getting closer and closer to the edge of the cliff,” warns CDC Director Tom Frieden.
↧