If there’s way to ruin a sultry summer, it’s surely news of a Goliath-strength gonorrhoea strain. Not only has the disease been on the rise since 2014 in the UK, but the World Health Association is now warning of an globally spreading gonorrhoea superbug which is resistant to all antibiotics – a libido-crushing thought when we contemplate that some 78 million people in the world each year will get it.

Gonorrhoea is a particularly pernicious infection. Residing in the genitals, rectum and throat, it is caught not through just penetrative or oral sex but through touch, which means it can be transferred on fingers or sex toys. While saliva has enzymes that can kill it, it is contracted by fellatio due to the urethra coming into contact with the pharynx, where there’s a higher risk of bacterial exchange. This means cunnilingus can be enjoyed relatively safely – prioritise women’s pleasure in the name of the public health.

The disease often stalks victims silently, with no symptoms; when it does leave its mark, symptoms are decidedly unpleasant – conjunctivitis, abdominal pain, even pus leakage from the penis. Left untreated, it can cause pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, and also increase your risk of catching HIV. And it enjoys a combative challenge. As reproductive specialist Teodora Wi puts it, “Every time you introduce a new type of antibiotic, this bug develops resistance to it”. The nutty conservative logic that it’s nature’s way of paying us back for enjoying ourselves too much almost seems viable for a second.

So what’s a population dependent on sex for reproduction and pleasure to do? Well, for a start, not implement anything as draconian as punishing those who spread it, a tactic used during first world war Britain when the government introduced the Defence of the Realm Act to prosecute women who infected soldiers and thus “threatened” national security. Second, don’t panic. Thus far there have been only three identified cases of people with a strain resistant to all antibiotics, so it’s far from too late for us to stop this becoming a pandemic, or for you to protect yourself.

Everything about better sexual health begins with education and communication. It may be the stuff of teenage nightmares, but being candid about the effects and consequences of contracting the disease is key to getting people to use condoms, which greatly aid prevention. Of course, given that gonorrhea is also contracted by oral sex and fingering between an infected and uninfected area, it’s important to stress the limits of condoms too. And sexual honesty. If you’re sleeping with multiple people who may or may not know about one another, do the decent thing and prioritise getting tested.

But rather than fear-mongering with grotesque descriptions and diagrams, teaching people to pay better attention and care to their overall physical health is key. With more awareness of your body, that sore throat or itchiness or stomach pain you didn’t have before you had sex becomes easier to pay attention to, and easier to get checked out. And dare to care if a lover tells you they feel unwell. What do any of us really lose by doing the vigilant thing?

Men, in particular need to pay attention. Since 2015 in the UK, men who have sex with men have seen a greater rise in their risk of infection – something worth making extra noise about during Pride month, the party nobody wants to leave with a sexually transmitted disease.

The good thing about gonorrhoea is that it is easy to detect and the majority of contractions are not yet the superbug. A simple swab test for women and a urine or swab test for men can deliver results in the majority of cases which can at least rapidly isolate further infections. Unfortunately, it does take up to two weeks to get the results, during which it’s advisable to abstain from sexual activity with other people. It’s not as cheap or rapid as syphilis or HIV testing and research to make that more efficient has to be part of the long-term game plan. But so does putting more money, not less, into sexual health services, which the government has failed to deliver on, despite experts warning last year of an ensuing public health crisis if it doesn’t.

But even when local authorities don’t have the money they need to be able to do the care and campaigning they need to keep us healthy, there’s one last thing we can turn to – social media. Activism around STI acceptance, such as the “shoutyourstatus” hashtag twitter campaign for herpes in the US, is helping to lift the stigma around diagnosis, which in turn helps prevention.

Understandably, announcing that you’ve contracted the gonorrhoea superbug to your Instagram followers might sound like the ultimate public shaming, but if you share information about its prevalence, the symptoms, and about where to get tested before it spreads, you’ll be doing your little bit for better global sexual health, one like at a time.

• This article was amended on 11 July 2017 to acknowledge that there is a risk of transmission from cunnilingus, but that it is still safer than fellatio, and on 26 July 2017 to change Contageous Diseases Act to the Defence of the Realm Act