Gonorrhea cases higher in men than women
Date: November 2nd, 2018
Gender differences in STIs infections.
An approximate estimate reveals that 78 million people are infected with this infection caused by Neisseria gonorrhea as at the WHO statistics. This study reveals that the men show pronounced signs of infection.
Gender differences in STIs infections are of significant in this study since the symptoms are better identifiable in males and according to the research by scientists from Tufts University School of Medicine shows that there are gender specific signals in infection and resistance genes to antibiotics after conducting their study and comparing the gonococcal gene expression and its regulation in both genders.
Resistant to treatments
The emergence of new strains of this bacteria Neisseria gonorrhoeae that are resistant to antimicrobials has caused this disease to be a major threat to the health of the public. Most men are obviously symptomatic and the women asymptomatic but sometimes revealing mild symptoms. In the two genders, treatment of this infection is most effective at early stages with antibiotics.
According to the improved profile on the gene expression and infection of these bacteria on both genders, recent Gonorrhea information have shown that in times of the male active disease and their asymptomatic partner’s different genes expression vary in both males and females and thus the variation. This was linked to the two different environments of both male and female. These studies have been conducted in tissue culture, male human models and the mice. However, there is a need to study the active and natural infection in both genders in order to develop new ways of treatment and its prevention.
Men at higher risk than women
A better study to distinguish the prevalence on men and women was done on a group of patients who sought treatment against STIs, but in an area known to have high risk rates of gonorrhea and antibiotic resistance. An RNA-sequencing was done to identify the specific host and the bacterial genes which are normally expressed at the mucosal infection stage. It was observed that 9% of the gonococcal genes were more expressed in men and also showed genes involved in the host immune cells interaction and 4% in women and also the related phage-associated genes.
According to Gonorrhea information, similar antibiotic-resistance was observed in the whole DNA sequencing in both genders but the expression of these resistant genes was more in males’ up to four times higher.