Venereal Disease: Let’s Talk About This Silent Pandemic

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are prevalent almost in every society. In spite of high education and awareness about these diseases, people contract these diseases due to carelessness or shyness. Earlier, STDs were known as venereal diseases and were considered shameful and dirty. Even today, STDs carry a social stigma; yet times are changing and people are coming forward for tests and treatments.

Breaking the shackles of shame

Doctors advise people to leave shame and taboo behind and visit their nearest clinic to undergo a test. Only a test can tell you whether you are infected. Many STDs are asymptomatic. You would never know you are infected and continue to engage in sexual activities, further spreading the infection.

Don’t die of an STD!

STDs are often observed to become complicated in the later stages, as they spread to other organs. Many such diseases create life-threatening complications. According to doctors, many times, patients don’t die due to the actual infection, but they die due to the complication caused by the infection.

For example, the last stage of syphilis can lead to blindness, nerve damage, brain damage, heart damage, deafness, dementia, paralysis, and death.

“Seeing a patient die of syphilis is disheartening because syphilis is a completely curable disease. If only had the patient undergone timely venereal disease treatment!” remarks a doctor at an urgent care clinic.

Common venereal diseases

• Syphilis
• Gonorrhea
• Chlamydia
• Genital herpes
• Human Papillomavirus (HPV)
• Human Immuno deficiency Virus (HIV)
• Trichomoniasis

An untreated venereal disease can cause infertility, Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID), and a higher risk of contracting other infections.

Simply treating the symptom is not enough

When people get a symptom, such as sores or blisters or rash on the skin, they visit a dermatologist and receive skin treatment. The symptoms heal. However, this does not mean the bacterium or the virus is killed. It is still alive in your body.

You ought to kill the root cause of the infection, which is the bacterium or the virus. For that, you must visit a clinic and undergo a test. The doctor will prescribe you treatment for the real infection accordingly.

Holding back testing due to embarrassment is not a wise thing to do. The pathogen might go dormant for a while and deceive you into thinking that you are fine. Then, it would produce symptoms again and this time they would be more serious.

Letting a pathogen stay in the body is a direct invitation to health disaster. The wisest thing to do is undergo a test and take a complete venereal disease treatment.

An outbreak nobody is talking about

STDs are so rampant throughout the world that one can easily declare them as a pandemic. However, nobody is talking about these diseases as openly as the others. Millions of people across the globe carry infections, but not all take treatment. This means they are carriers of infection.

As per a research paper published in a renowned medical journal, STDs are as common as common cold. It is time to take venereal disease seriously so that we can make the world a healthier place to live in.