#124 Gonorrhoea

Gonorrhoea bacteria,

Credit: Science photo library

Gonorrhoea is caused by bacteria that can be passed from one person to another during sexual intercourse. Neisseria bacterium is a small, round cell. It can only survive in moist places, such as tissues lining the tubes in the productive systems of a man and a woman. 

Symptoms

• If gonorrhoea bacteria are living in a woman’s vagina or a man’s urethra, the infection can be passed during sexual intercourse. 

• The first symptoms occurs 2-7 days after infection. 

• Man: the bacteria reproduce inside the urethra ---> unpleasant discharge and pain when urinating.

• Woman: the bacteria reproduce mostly in the cervix, although they can also do so in the vagina ---> many woman do not notice discharge or suffer a pain as men do. 

• Most men with gonorrhoea know that they have it, many women are unaware that they have the infection.    

	Signs and symptoms	Effects	Treatment
Male	- Sores on penis - Discharge of pus from penis - Pain when urinating	- Damage to urinary  and reproductive organs   - Sterility - Blindness in a baby born  to a mother with the disease.	Antibiotic, e.g. penicillin
Female	- Discharge of pus from vagina, but not always obvious - Often no symptoms

 

Severe eye pathology in a baby born to a mother
with gonorrhoea: eyelids swollen, profuse purulent discharge.
 If untreated blindness may result.
Credit: cehjournal.org