Sexually transmitted diseases or STD are one of the most severe clinical challenges faced by mankind. These diseases spread from person to person by means of sexual transactions. Common awareness is one of the best tools to fight these diseases. Although many people are generally becoming aware of these by help of government effort and NGOs, many still feel shame and are deserted when they are diagnosed with sexually transmitted diseases.

One of the common names among the sexually transmitted diseases is the Gonorrhea. This disease is also known as the clap. The word clap finds its origin in the French word ‘clapier’ meaning a brothel, as these diseases are most commonly spread by prostitutes and persons of other similar occupations. Others opine that it comes from the old French word ‘clapoir’ meaning sexual sore.

Gonorrhea, one of the leaders of sexually transmitted diseases, is a bacterial infection that infects around 700,000 people in the US a year. This disease never spread by sharing toilets and bathrooms; but from vaginal, oral and anal sexual connections with infected people and also by birth (opthalmia neonatorum). Although ‘the clap’ is seldom reported to spread despite safe sex, a male has 20% chance of catching it through an unsafe sex episode while a female has a risk factor of 60-80%.

Some of the cases of the clap are asymptomatic, whereas others can present in various ways. A man infected with gonorrhea can show symptoms such as yellowish discharge from the penis as well as painful urination in two to thirty days after the infection. Often it exhibits symptoms such as fever. On the other hand, gonorrhea infected women can produce symptoms such as discharge from the vagina, difficulty in urination, off-cycle menstrual bleeding, vomiting, fever and sometimes even bleeding after sexual intercourse.

Sexually transmitted disease the clap is often a severely feared disease whereas there is no reason to do so. It is a treatable actually curable disease. In the United States, this disease is treated with powerful antibiotics recommended by the CDC (Center for Disease Control). In the United Kingdom most of the cases of gonorrhea are treated in dedicated sexual health clinics across the country. Only sometime this disease may be hard to fight as it comes in a drug resistant strain. To make the treatment more effective, PDPT (patient delivered partner therapy) is being followed all around the world where the sexual partner of the patient is also tested and treated, if diagnosed.

Although gonorrhea cannot be a hard disease to fight; if left untreated, it may lead to unexpected complications; some of them may be as severe as joint problems, sterility and even damage to heart valves.