Gonorrhoea: drug resistance update

It has long been observed that Gonorrhoea is becoming resistant to some types of antibiotics. Particularly in the Far East and America. In the UK, Gonorrhoea is usually treated with two different types of antibiotic (including an injection as well as a pill) to make sure that the bacteria is cured by one or both. However, Public Health England (PHE) says that the rate of Gonorrhoea becoming drug-resistant has slowed down.

A bacteria can become resistant to drugs both by Darwin’s theory of evolution and adapting to its environment, and if people do not finish their course of antibiotics. IF you do not finish the course, and not all the bacteria have been killed, then those that remain become stronger and more likely to be able to survive the antibiotics next time. As Gonorrhoea is so infectious, you can see how different antibiotics not quite killing the bacteria can lead to a multi-drug resistant strain quickly, and it becoming wide spread.

There were 21% more cases of Gonorrhoea in 2012 than 2011, Dr Gwenda Hughes, PHE Head of STI surveillance, said: “In 2012 we saw another large rise in new gonorrhoea diagnoses, and are particularly concerned about the high infection rates amongst men who have sex with men, and young adults in some urban areas.”

You get Gonnorrhoea in your vagina, urethra, throat and rectum, and women can transmit if to their unborn child during birth and pregnancy. An untreated infection can lead to infertility in women, and reduced fertility in men, but before this it can often have no symptoms, so the best thing to do is get tested regularly.