Aspiring Immigrants to US need to undergo certain medical tests and one among them is the Sexually transmitted disease. As per the reports of World Health Organization, annually around 448 million curable cases of STIs occur in the age group of 15-49 years. Most of these STIs in adults need to undergo treatment. The center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a public health service, is responsible for ensuring that Immigrants who enter the United States do not carry any kind of threat to the local citizens. One of the ways of prevention of the same is by Immigration Medical Exam, which evaluates the health of the immigrants.
One of the important tests under the I-693 form is for Gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted infection. A second most bacterial STI that is prevalent in the United States, which is believed to have spread during the 1990s and 2000s, with more than 280,000 cases reported during 2011. Neisseria Gonorrhoeae is the bacterium that causes Gonorrhea infecting both men and women and even the child. The infection commonly occurs in genitals, rectum, and throat. The disease is spread through unprotected oral sex, anal and vaginal intercourse with gonorrhea affected persons. A baby during childbirth is more in danger if the mother is affected with gonorrhea.
Most of the men and women may face no symptoms at all. But some cases, symptoms may appear after 2 to 3 days or after 30 days of exposure.
Symptoms are like
•Having a burning sensation when urinating, itching, soreness, and painful bowel movements.
•Increased vaginal discharge with vaginal bleeding during intermenstrual bleeding are seen in women
•Painful or swollen testicles with white, yellow or green discharge from the penis are seen in men.
The symptoms are checked by doctors by conducting urine tests of the patient by Nucleic acid amplification tests. In case of oral and anal sex, swabs are used where the samples are collected from a throat and rectum.
Pregnant women with untreated gonorrhea will have their baby with high probabilities of infection during delivery causing severe health issues for the baby like ophthalmia neonatorum which affects the perforation of the globe of the eyes and cause blindness. Other medical issues in newborn are scalp abscesses, rhinitis, vaginitis, urethritis, arthritis, meningitis and sepsis. It is important that the pregnant women consult right doctor in order to get proper medication at the earliest which in turn will have low impact on the baby.
Affected people if not considered medical care will have a sever impact on their body resulting in
•Pelvic inflammatory disease causing blockage in the fallopian tubes, infertility and pelvic/ abdominal pain for a long term among women
•In men, the tubes attached to the testicles will cause pain. In rare of the rare case, they may become sterile.
•In some rare case, gonorrhea can be life-threatening by spreading to the blood or joints.
•Chances of receiving or giving HIV have seen if the patient goes untreated.
Gonorrhea can be treated if diagnosed at the proper time by blocking off the infection, even though nothing can be answered for the damage caused, as drug seems to have become immune to gonorrhea it is getting hard to permanently wash out the disease. The medicines should not be shared with any other person. Infected persons should avoid having sex. Being in a long term relationship with the spouse, who has been positively tested for gonorrhea, but has negative on STD test results. Thus, all patients with gonorrhea should make sure that the patient’s sex partner from the preceding 60 days are evaluated and treated as recommended by the physician.
