Consultant urologist Dr Duncan Kimani has warned against self-medication with antibiotics, saying poor antibiotic use is contributing to drug-resistant sexually transmitted infections such as gonorrhoea.
Speaking on Radio Generation on Monday, Kimani said incomplete antibiotic courses and repeated self-prescription can allow bacteria to develop resistance, raising the risk of difficult-to-treat “super gonorrhoea” strains that can spread rapidly among sexually active populations.
“Our antibiotic discipline — let me use that word — is very poor,” Kimani said, explaining that many people self-treat and fail to complete prescribed antibiotic courses.
He said repeated exposure to antibiotics, particularly when taken at insufficient doses, can allow bacteria to adapt and evade the drugs normally used to treat infections.
“When the resistance develops on a large scale, and when this person is maybe taking subliminal doses or repeated, they eventually exhaust our common antibiotic,” he said.
Kimani said the problem can spread beyond the individual patient when a resistant strain is transmitted to another person.
“The bacteria has already learned how to evade the normal mechanisms by which the antibiotics work. So the next person now will have a disadvantage,” he said.
He said the risk was particularly high because some sexually transmitted infections, including chlamydia and gonorrhoea, can have few or no symptoms.
“Chlamydia is the highest in incidence, and it's actually known as the silent STI because most patients are asymptomatic, but they are carriers,” he said.
Gonorrhoea can also be asymptomatic in some people, while symptoms may take weeks to appear, increasing the chances of transmission.
Kimani warned that resistant infections could also cross borders as people travel between countries.
“You live here, you've gone to Kisumu, or you even live here, you go to Belgium, then now you have taken that super bacteria there,” he said.
He called for stronger antibiotic stewardship, noting that some countries restrict access to certain antibiotics to prevent resistance.
Kimani said most sexually transmitted infections can be cured with appropriate treatment, although viral infections such as HIV and herpes cannot be completely eradicated and instead have to be managed.
He also cautioned people against abandoning condoms after testing negative for HIV, saying this could expose them to other sexually transmitted infections.
“People say, ‘Oh, we are safe. We can actually go without a condom.’ Now they expose themselves to other infections, which are asymptomatic and spread even much faster,” he said.
Kimani urged people who do not respond to treatment to seek medical attention rather than repeatedly taking antibiotics on their own.