‘This will help ensure cases are managed promptly and reduce the spread of resistant strains.’ ‘PHE actively monitors, and acts on, the spread of antibiotic resistance and potential gonorrhea treatment failures and has introduced enhanced surveillance of identified cases, their sexual partners and treatment,’ says Dr Gwenda Hughes, Consultant Scientist and Head of the Sexually Transmitted Infections Section at Public Health England. Is there anything I can do to protect myself? Any untreated infection with gonorrhea can lead to severe chronic complications, including pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and infertility, among others things. If that happens, we really could have a major health problem – one that doctors are unsure how they would handle.Ī spokesperson for PHE, asked by GSN how someone with gonorrhea would be treated if it were resistant to both antibiotics, simply replied: ‘Management of future cases of treatment failure will be done on a case by case basis, involving expert advice from doctors and scientists.’ If I don’t have any symptoms, is it important to get treated? Health officials are concerned that it the bacterium has developed a resistance to one antibiotic then it may evolve to develop resistance to ceftriaxone too. So if it can be treated with the other antibiotic, what’s the problem? A definite diagnosis can only be given through a check-up with an sexual health clinic. It can be a sore throat if infected in your throat.Īlternatively, you can have no symptoms – particularly if you are only infected in your throat or rectum. This can include sharp pain when urinating and an unpleasant greenish or yellow pus-discharge from your penis or vagina. How do you know if you’re infected?īoth common gonorrhea and ‘super gonorrhea’ presents themselves in exactly the same way. Of course, there are probably people who are infected but do not yet know. So far, all reported cases – and we are still talking about a fairly small number (34) – have been successfully treated. Instead, the reported infections have had to be treated with ceftriaxone only. In other words, the antibiotic is largely ineffective against it. This new outbreak of gonorrhea has a high level of resistance to azithromycin. Until now, gonorrhea infections in the UK are treated with a two-pronged attack of antibiotics given at the same time: ceftriaxone and azithromycin. It’s been dubbed ‘super gonorrhea’ by the media, but this may inadvertently give the impression that it’s an all-conquering, impossible-to-treat version. This is a sexually-transmitted infection that can infect your penis, vagina, rectum or throat.
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The first outbreak was among gay men in Leeds, but it has since appeared in the Midlands and further south – with five reported cases in London.īut what exactly is it and what happens if you become infected with it? What is ‘super gonorrhea’?īasically, it’s a slightly different variation of the gonorrhea bacterium.
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This first appeared in straight people but was soon identified in a handful of gay men, were it has spread more quickly. Most notable was a rise among gay and bisexual men.Įven more concerning was the appearance of so-called ‘super gonorrhea’ – a variation of the bacterium that is resistant to traditional antibiotic treatment. Public Health England (PHE) released statistics in July showing that infection rates of gonorrhea in England has risen sharply in recent years.īetween 20, the incidence of gonorrhea in the country rose by 53%, from 26,880 to 41,193 cases.