The World Health Organisation has revealed that at least three people worldwide are infected with totally untreatable “superbug” strains of gonorrhea which they are likely to be spreading to others through sex.
While giving details of studies showing a “very serious situation” with regard to highly drug-resistant forms of the sexually-transmitted disease (STD), WHO experts said it was only a matter of time before last-resort gonorrhoea antibiotics would be of no use.
The organization said the gonorrhea are increasing, and doctors are finding it difficult to resist the infection as the antibiotics are running out.
WHO Antimicrobial expert, Marc Sprenger, said:
To control gonorrhea, doctors not only need new medicines, but also a rapid diagnostic tool and a vaccine, which are yet to be developed.
The infection, which in many cases has no symptoms on its own, can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and infertility, as well as increasing the risk of getting HIV.
Wi, who gave details in a telephone briefing of two studies on gonorrhoea published in the journal PLOS Medicine, said one had documented three specific cases – one each in Japan, France and Spain – of patients with strains of gonorrhoea against which no known antibiotic is effective.
