An eye-catching billboard campaign is getting attention in Baltimore and across the nation.It's hard to miss the sign on West 28th Street. It can even be seen from Interstate 83. The billboard seen across 16 states has a strong message about gonorrhea.The organization that put it up said the point is to get everyone's attention and start a conversation."It's a conversation-starter for sure -- that was the intention behind it," said Mike McVicker-Weaver, an AIDS Healthcare Foundation regional director for Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. "It's a call to action for the individual to think about gonorrhea, to have conversations about gonorrhea with their partners."McVicker-Weaver said the foundation's CEO came up with the idea for the nationwide campaign after a new strain of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea popped up in the U.S. earlier this year."It's a ship that is supposed to look like the titanic crashing into the tip of the iceberg. So, on the top of the water, you see the tip of the iceberg, but below it, there's this much bigger iceberg," McVicker-Weaver said. "It's supposed to imply the risk of (sexually transmitted infections). Sometimes, the risk is much larger than what you see on the surface."The risk of drug-resistant gonorrhea comes as all gonorrhea cases are on the rise year after year. Gonorrhea is the second most common STI in the U.S. The latest Maryland Department of Health data shows more than 11,500 gonorrhea cases in the state in 2019 -- which represents a 12.5% increase from 2018 and a 50% increase from 2010.McVicker-Weaver hopes the numbers -- and the billboard -- are a wakeup call: "To realize that the risk is greater than perhaps we perceive and to get tested."Testing and protection are free at AHF's Baltimore office on St. Paul Street, but McVicker-Weaver said it's not just up to a person to act; it's also up to government and public health officials to take action."We know now that gonorrhea is resistant to the main lines of treatment for it. It's rare, still, to run into those strains of gonorrhea, but it's there. So, without a robust public health response, it's going to become a real crisis," McVicker-Weaver said.| LINKS: AIDS Healthcare Foundation STD info -- Testing\Treatment | FAQs | STD Basics