Cases of drug-resistant gonorrhoea are on the rise, according to a new study by the World Health Organisation, which found several cases of the infection that are untreatable by all known antibiotics.
"At least three people - in France, Japan and Spain - are infected with an untreatable strain of the disease, which they may have spread to others through sex," Sky News reports.
Gonorrhoea can lead to ectopic pregnancy and infertility, and increase the chances of a patient contracting HIV, but in many cases it has no symptoms. That increases the chances that people with the disease will spread it without even knowing they have it.
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High-income countries in particular are struggling the most to treat the disease, the WHO said, and ten of the richest countries in the world have reported cases of gonorrhea resistant to the last-line treatment cefixime. Resistance to another last-resort treatment known as ceftriaxone is less common.
"The bacteria that cause gonorrhea are particularly smart. Every time we use a new class of antibiotics to treat the infection, the bacteria evolve to resist them," said Teodora Wi, a human reproduction specialist at the WHO. "We need to be more vigilant now."
Nor are researchers hopeful about an imminent breakthrough.
"The situation is fairly grim," said Manica Balasegaram, director of the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership. "There are only three drug candidates in the entire drug pipeline and no guarantee any will make it out."
