Super gonorrhoea warning: Austrian man catches drug-resistant strain of STI from Cambodian prostitute as experts claim virus poses 'major global threat'
- Unnamed man in his 50s caught the STI by not using a condom in Cambodia
- Tests revealed he had super gonorrhoea, which is resistant to regular drugs
- Experts warned the spread of the super strain could makes cases untreatable
- Comes as MPs were today warned more needs to be done to tackle superbug
Super gonorrhoea poses a 'major global threat', scientists have warned in the wake of an Austrian man catching a drug-resistant version of the STI.
The unidentified man, in his 50s, became infected after having unprotected sex with a prostitute while on holiday in Cambodia in April.
Five days later, when he returned home, he experienced a burning pain while urinating and discharge from his penis.
Medical tests reveled he had gonorrhoea and he was given standard antibiotics.
While the drugs made his symptoms disappear, the man still tested positive — which meant the treatment had technically failed. FAIR?
Doctors called his strain 'extensively drug resistant' and different to ones seen before.
They warned it could effectively render gonorrhoea untreatable, if it was allowed to spread.
Lead author of the report, Dr Sonja Pleininger of the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, said such strains 'poses a major global public health threat'.
'If such strains manage to establish a sustained transmission, many gonorrhoea cases might become untreatable,' she said.
New medications targeting the gonorrhoea bacteria and/or the creation of an effective gonorrhoea vaccine are crucial to limiting the impact of drug resistant strains, the authors added.
The man was eventually treated with a week-long course of amoxicillin-clavulanic acid, a combination antibiotic treatment. He later tested negative.
However, Cambodian sex worker was unable to be traced, meaning the situation could repeat itself, according to experts who detailed the man's case in the journal
Eurosurveillance.
Gonorrhoea is the second most common STI in Britain, with almost 60,000 people catching it each year. Rough 680,000 Americans get infected each year, too.
Symptoms include a thick green or yellow discharge from the vagina or penis, and pain when urinating.
If left untreated, the disease can lead to serious complications including infertility and potentially life-threatening pelvic inflammatory disease in women.
In pregnant women, it can also cause permanent blindness for newborns.
Most strains are still treatable although super-strains have popped up over the past few years.
Cases of a type of gonorrhoea resistant to ceftriaxone have been rising in the Asia-Pacific region.
In February, British health authorities warned they had detected four genetically similar cases in the previous few months.
Gonorrhoea has been gathering resistance to a number of antibiotics over the past few decades, a phenomena called antimicrobial resistance.
British doctors used to prescribe the antibiotic ciprofloxacin. But in 2005 it was no longer recommended as a treatment because the bacteria had become resistant.
Another antibiotic — cefixime — was also dropped in 2011 for the same reason.
The strain the Austrian man had displayed resistance to azithromycin, one of the two frontline antibiotics used to treat gonorrhoea in Europe.