Antibiotic-resistant gonorrhoea is rapidly increasing and could become ‘untreatable’ in the future, health officials have warned.
Between June 2022 and May 2024, scientists working at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) identified 15 cases in England that were resistant to the antibiotic ceftriaxone, the first option drug used to treat the condition in the UK.
Dr Helen Fifer, a consultant microbiologist at the UKHSA, said that if ‘left untreated, gonorrhoea can cause major health issues, including problems with your pelvis and infertility’.
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Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted infection (STI), which is spread mainly by contact with genitals or bodily fluids. Symptoms of the STI include a thick green or yellow discharge from the vagina or penis, pain when urinating and, in women, bleeding between periods, according to the NHS.
It is easily diagnosed with a swab or urine test and is typically treated with a single antibiotic. However, health officials have said that growing levels of antimicrobial resistance, where the bacteria causing the infection evolves to become resistant to medication, is an increasing concern across a range of diseases.
With 85,000 cases of the STI reported in England last year, the highest level since 1918, UKHSA officials have urged people to ‘maintain good sexual health’ and get regularly tested.
‘Condoms are the best defence, but if you didn’t use one with a recent new or casual partner, get tested to detect the infection and prevent onwards transmission,’ said Dr Fifer.
Professor Matt Phillips, the president of the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH), said that the rise of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhoea infections is a ‘worrying trend’ which ‘can create physical and psychological harms and place additional demands on other parts of the NHS’.
BASHH, alongside sector partners, has called for a sexual health strategy for England. Phillips said: ‘This must be a priority if our expert sexual health workforce are to effectively meet these growing and changing needs in sexual health.’